"Project Hail Mary" — A Space Gamble Kept Aloft by Ryan Gosling's Charm

Adapted from Andy Weir's bestselling sci-fi novel, Project Hail Mary tells the story of a mission launched into space as Earth's last hope to stop an alien microbe that's extinguishing the Sun. Named after the American football "Hail Mary" pass, this mission is, as the name suggests, a long shot with no other option. With direction from the The Lego Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse team of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, it's no surprise that the film's tone carries a playful, mischievous, boyish streak.

Ryan Gosling, as molecular biologist Dr. Ryland Grace, plays the role with total comfort: he wakes from an induced coma with unkempt long hair, a scraggly beard, and zero memory of why he's there. The rest of the crew is dead; his mission is to figure out both how he got there and how to save humanity. Gosling's effortless magic onscreen makes the film's slower stretches, and its occasionally distractingly light tone, easy to forgive.

The film's real heart beats in the strange friendship Grace forms with a stone-bodied, spider-like alien — noted in the crew logs as "Rocky." Once Grace's software translates Rocky's communication into Hulk-speak ("Rocky fix," "Rocky help"), the film starts swinging between E.T. nostalgia and The Martian's cheerful engineering-porn energy. Flashbacks featuring Sandra Hüller's cold-blooded German technocrat, Eva Stratt, diving in and out of the flames try to add some gravity to the script now and then.

Still, the dramatic function of these flashbacks always stays vague. It's unclear whether Grace is genuinely remembering things, or whether the directors are just using these sequences to change up the framing. Don't go looking for the shattered wonder of Nolan's Interstellar or the romantic isolation of Spaihts' Passengers; Project Hail Mary deliberately stays in a lighter, more playful place. That choice is sometimes clever, sometimes feels like a "kids' channel finale."

The result: if you're familiar with the cheerful, witty tone of Weir's The Martian, you'll feel right at home. Project Hail Mary isn't a cinematic revolution; but the Hail Mary pass Gosling throws lands, against all odds, right in the receiver's hands.