Every once in a while, amidst the ho hum and doldrums of modern living, a piece of filmmaking comes along that alters the culture landscape and challenges the minds of hundreds. But while we all wait for that day to come along, why don’t we watch “Project Hail Mary” instead?
Conceived first from the demented mind of Andy Weir in 2021 with a book of the same name, “Project Hail Mary” is a film that I’m sure all 7 of you savvy film goers were gnawing at your socks to go see. Why else but to see Ryan Gosling fart around the galaxy with a space rock on a suicide mission to save the world from a sun-eating space goo and all this excitement for a budget of $200 million? Well, I was sold ladies and viral germs, but after finally seeing this MGM produced treasure, should you also waste your hard-earned dollars on this?
Well, you should be the judge, man, I’m just the informed opinionator. But it’s an informed opinion you can trust!
So, what’s this film all about anyways? Well, its stars Ryan Gosling as Dr. Ryland Grace, a molecular biologist turned full-time schoolteacher whose expertise makes him the target of interest by a top-secret world-wide project to save the solar system from a star-eating, black-as-night microorganism called ‘Astrophage’ (which is Greek for star-eater. I guess Latin just wasn’t good enough for old Weir). The team, led by Eva Stratt played by Sandra Hüller, builds a spaceship capable of traversing the cosmos to reach the one star that has seemingly been untouched by the astro-goop, Tau Ceti. But when half of the crew gets blown to bits, Dr. Grace is volunteered against his will to go in their stead. When he awakes at his intended destination, he learns of the death of his crew and in the process of crewing a ship meant for 4, he comes across a mysterious alien spaceship which by some crazy cosmic circumstance is crewed by one space-fairing sentient rock monster with a dead crew trying to save his planet. The two team up, Grace naming the boulder Rocky and giving him a swanky robotic translator voiced by James Ortiz, and through a series of scientific shenanigans, the two find the solution to their problem: a rival microorganism they called ‘Taumoeda’ which they both take back to their home planets before Grace learns that it can munch through the material of Rocky’s ship. In a classic display of science fiction heroism, Grace sacrifices his return to Earth in order to save Earth, Rocky and his home planet.
Now, like I said, this movie isn’t the second coming of Christ, but it is a decent science fiction film. It’s got good visuals for the scenes in space, with shots that seem to harken back to films like “Silent Running” and “The Black Hole,” and the performances from the actors were solid. However, as I’ve said in the past, it’s not quite enough for a film to just be a pretty picture and despite the good acting, nothing really stood out. Dr. Grace feels like your generic ‘oh I’m not a hero’ average genius dude who becomes the savior of all. Rocky is your average goofy alien sidekick cracking jokes at the backwards nature of human yokels? And the other supporting characters? Well, let’s just say you’ll have plenty of sleeping martians this Christmas, kids. This film tries to be “Silent Running,” “The Martian” and “Interstellar,” but it doesn’t really do it very well at the end of the day. It just becomes your average run of the mill ‘save the universe’ flick with Ryan Gosling doing a pretty good job of playing Ryan Gosling as usual. He’s no Matt Damon, that’s for sure, but he is the modern equivalent of Matt Damon, in which I mean he is in everything and plays a slightly altered version of himself that is hard to separate from his on-screen character.
But you know what? That’s okay. As you might have garnered from the theme of tonight’s party, not every movie HAS to be amazingly brain tingling. Sometimes all we really need is an average run of the mill sci-fi shlock-fest filled with bizarrely above-broad visuals, stale supporting characters and a semi-relatable story that the average everyday boob can walk away from knowing 5 more big words! With this film making back its budget, plus a calm $23 million, I would say that the world agrees. Hopefully we can say the same for the next bout of space movies. Hey, maybe a remake of “Forbidden Planet”? A reboot of “Lost in Space”? Call me Hollywood, I know all the greats you forgot!
