Robert Zemeckis’ Contact (1997) was an excellent drama about the politics involved in building a revolutionary spacecraft using alien instructions.  Christoper Nolan’s Interstellar (2014) was a mind-bending adventure about astronauts travelling the galaxy to help save a dying Earth.  Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016) was a powerful tale about a linguist trying to bridge the communication gap with a never-before-seen extraterrestrial.

I mention these three movies because Project Hail Mary feels like an amalgamation of their themes and elements.  Drawing from a 2021 science fiction novel authored by American Andy Weir (The Martian), it introduces us to a world facing destruction.  A kind of “fungus” located on Venus is slowly sucking the heat out of the sun’s southern pole.  Scientists estimate this will have a cooling effect on Earth with average temperatures dropping significantly over the next three decades.  Billions will perish and for those who survive, they’ll likely be involved in wars as countries fight for food and energy.

A conglomeration of nations is putting their hope in one final idea, aptly named “Project Hail Mary”.  Three astronauts will travel for 11 light years to a distant planet which, based on analysis, appears to have neutered the fungus’ power.  Two die enroute and so Earth’s hope lie entirely in the hands of Dr Ryland Grace (Gosling), a scientist turned schoolteacher who is, somewhat, out of his depth.  He desperately needs assistance and it arrives in the form of an alien lifeform but first, they must find a way of speaking with one another.

It’s far too long at 156 minutes (many sequences could have been trimmed) but Project Hail Mary will still win customers over.  This is not because of an emotional, must-save-the-world vibe but rather, it’s comedic charm.  The plot makes zero sense and so star Ryan Gosling (La La Land) successfully portrays our hero as reluctant, goofy type who is having fun (e.g. drinking vodka, bonding with aliens) above all else.  I should have expected as much given it’s directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the duo responsible for films including 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie.

Gosling is front and centre but also worth a shout-out is Academy Award nominee Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall) who appears in several lengthy flashbacks as the co-ordinator of the Hail Mary Project back home.  Her comedic timing is perfect, and she earns genuine laughs with her unemotive expressions and blunt dialogue.  Audiences are also likely to fall in love with the endearing alien, named Rocky, who is brought to life using puppeteers as opposed to visual effect artists.  Even I’ll concede it’s cute!

As the first big-budget blockbuster of 2026 (it reportedly cost $200 million USD), Project Hail Mary needs to put a lot of bums on a lot of seats.  Can the charismatic lure of Ryan Gosling do just that?  We’ll soon find out.