Aiden Gaddis ’27: Thumbs Up
The recipe for Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir’s latest novel-turned-movie, is as follows: Take an imminent human-extinction event à la Interstellar, fold in Ken from Barbie, add a pinch of the 1980s sitcom ALF, sprinkle in some astrophysics, microbiology and a dash of flat acting by the supporting cast, mix well and let it bake for two hours and 36 minutes. Out of the oven comes a visually polished, overly-long film carried by an engaging leading performance. While the plot drags and occasionally feels underdeveloped, it nonetheless comes together into a satisfying, flavorful dish that ultimately is well worth the time.
I loved Weir’s The Martian. In fact, I loved the movie so much that I read the book, and that should tell you something. It felt like a cosmic episode of the reality television show Alone — the hostile environment of Mars versus the botanist Mark Watney. Only Watney was no ordinary botanist, but one with a Sheldon Cooper-level proficiency in nearly every scientific and engineering discipline known to man, who used duct tape in so many ways that even Tony Stark would have taken notes. In many ways, Project Hail Mary initially seemed headed in that same direction. When Ryan Gosling’s character, Dr. Ryland Grace, awakens in the beginning of the film, bearded, disoriented and with no memory of how he ended up near a star that is not our sun, he is 12 light years (or, for the science nerds, 1.135 x 1014 kilometers) from Earth. The story unfolds through frequent flashbacks, which attempt to convince the audience that someone as charismatic as Gosling was once a humiliated microbiology Ph.D. turned the world’s most overqualified middle school science teacher. As the film makes clear, he is friendless, family-less and, most tragically, dogless, making him the perfect candidate for a one-way mission to save humanity from alien microorganisms that are mysteriously consuming the sun.
Fortunately, he is not alone for long. He soon befriends a rock-like, non-carbon-based, non-anthropomorphic lifeform (I hesitate to use the term “alien” because, to him, we are the aliens) whose own star is suffering the same fate. Like Grace, he is also alone. What follows can be summarized more quickly than the film itself manages: The two become friends and work together to save both their worlds. When I initially saw the previews, I was worried that the relationship between the human and otherworldly lifeform, who comes to be called “Rocky,” would become corny, more Muppet Movie than serious space adventure. However, Rocky is more than a lithic Muppet; he is witty, compassionate and endearing, and his relationship with Grace forms the film’s emotional core.
Overall, I found the movie enjoyable. There are stretches where the plot drags, moments where character interactions make you pause and points where you find yourself checking the time. That said, Gosling largely carries the film. His humor and on-screen presence shine, and his interactions with Rocky provide much of the film’s warmth and charm. In the end, Project Hail Mary has all the right ingredients, it just takes it time to bring them together.
Luke Dolan ’27: Thumbs Down
I enjoyed the experience of watching Project Hail Mary for its bold, future-facing vision of space travel and technology, but the film ultimately fell short of my expectations. The film delivers a compelling and visually-satisfying picture of what the future might hold, complete with coma pods for space travel, artificially intelligent medical robots and alternative propulsion systems.
After being introduced to the technology which makes this journey possible, the movie flashes back to Ryan Gosling’s time on Earth pre-launch. It is here where the viewer is first given the context for why Gosling is in space, and where they first learn about the concept of astrophage, an algae-like substance living in space and threatening to eliminate Earth’s sunlight. While the dimming of the sun is a fascinating topic that has been widely debated in the scientific community, the movie does very little to flesh out the implications, instead skipping to the quest for a solution.
The use of flashbacks, while an understandable creative choice for a director looking to reckon with Gen Z’s diminished attention spans, never lets the movie fully explore any topic. By the time the viewer is considering the implications of a world without sunlight, Gosling is already making friends with an alien named Rocky on a similar quest to solve the astrophage problem.
Gosling meeting Rocky comes out of nowhere, but they instantly form a connection. The movie spends the following hour fleshing out this relationship, with Gosling building a one-sided translation system allowing the alien to speak somewhat broken English through a computer. Despite Gosling’s painfully long efforts at creating a communication system, there is very little dialogue of substance. Whereas most people, when given the ability to communicate with a superintelligent alien, would likely ask questions about the secrets of the universe, Gosling’s dialogue with the alien revolves around buddy-comedy tropes, awkward translations and a fair amount of slapstick humor.
After lingering excessively on clunky and repetitive dialogue between Gosling and Rocky, the film moves at breakneck speed in pursuit of an emotionally triumphant resolution. The creative choice to have the characters breed the astrophage cure off-screen creates an ending which feels contrived. Ultimately, this was not a movie about first contact with aliens, nor a movie envisioning what life on Earth would look like without the sun. Project Hail Mary asked so many questions of the viewer without providing the space to fully ponder them, to the point that the conclusion is fundamentally unsatisfying, despite the creators’ best efforts to answer their own ridiculously long list of sci-fi subplots.
‘Thumb War’ is a taste of two critics’ opinions on the same piece of media.
Luke Dolan is a member of the Class of 2027 in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He is a contributor for the Arts & Culture department and can be reached at lpd39@cornell.edu.
Aiden Gaddis is a member of the Class of 2027 in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a contributor for the Arts & Culture department and can be reached at ajg335@cornell.edu.
