Project Hail Mary (2026) Review

 Project Hail Mary (2026) 8/10

[THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!]

Hello and welcome to my first new movie review for 2026. Today, I’ll be going over Project Hail Mary. Originally a novel from 2021 written by Andy Weir, the film adapts the book, with a screenplay by Drew Goddard and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. The movie was a huge box office success and is regarded as the best movie of the year (so far).

Honestly I was only really curious about the movie because it’s Ryan Gosling in space. I didn’t really know what to expect from the film, but you can’t go wrong with Gosling. My brother treated me to this movie as an early birthday gift and I enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would. Let’s begin.

This is the story of Dr Grace, a molecular biologist who is a teacher at a middle school. In recent times, scientists have observed that the Sun is dimming, and it’s caused by microrobes called Astrophage that breed on Venus and are eating the Sun and other distant stars. The space between the Sun and Venus, called the Petrova line, will cause mass global cooling within the next 30 years and scientists need to find a way to fix this before this happens. Through their findings, they have discovered that the distant solar system Tau Ceti is unaffected by this phenomena. With Project Hail Mary, the world’s leading scientists will send a crew on a one-way trip to Tau Ceti to find out why, and send their findings back via probes. Dr Grace is one of these scientists, and when he wakes up, he learns that he is the last surviving member of the space mission, and humanity’s fate rests on his success.

This was a really cool, and pretty grounded, sci-fi drama. I really enjoyed Dr Grace and how his character is such a huge driving force for the main story (thank God since he is the main star for a huge chunk of the film). Also shout out to the alien he meets at Tau Ceti, Rocky. Rocky was a very nice surprise as I was not aware of any aliens being in this lol. It’s always nice to jump into a movie with little info. Rocky and Grace were a great dynamic duo and I would love to see more of them in the future (I highly doubt this will happen, but one can hope right). As for all the sciences, the film was pretty accurate with the scientific jargon, but the existence of Astrophage does bother me just a bit. More like how it acts with its breeding ground being Venus and travelling all the way to the Sun. That detail bothers me, but I guess that’s where the sci-fi elements come into play. Regardless, the movie handles all of these details with a lot of care, creating a refreshing experience that’s hard to replicate. Also the movie was pretty funny too, which helped break up the dramatic tense moments and give a more human touch to Grace and his chemistry with Rocky. Overall, great writing, great characters, and great depth too.

As for production, the movie was really good. I immediately jumped at the sound design. In terms of music, I’d say a space film like Interstellar was a better score, but this has a rock solid score as well. But the sound design with all the noises and Rocky’s language was really well done. Great cinematography too. I really loved how the greens and reds popped, and how they did both Grace’s spaceship and Rocky’s.

And special shout out to Ryan Gosling, who played Grace. I’ve loved Gosling for a few years now and this movie just exemplifies how awesome of an actor he is. Bro made me FEEL at certain moments and the way he just carries this movie needs to be studied. Also shout out to the team of puppeteers who played Rocky, which includes his voice actor James Ortiz. The rest of the cast was fine, but honestly nothing noteworthy. I did like Sandra Huller (Eva Stratt) and Lionel Boyce (Carl).

Project Hail Mary is a must watch sci-fi movie that I do recommend to everyone. Idk if I would say it’s one of my favorite science fiction movies, but it’s definitely a good time all around. Idk if I would rewatch this any time soon, but I did enjoy my time with it, and I’m sure you will too. Until my next review, stay frosty.

Thanks for reading.

This is Zorgak, signing off.