In early March, my feed became flooded with previews and the trailer for the then-upcoming space flick, “Project Hail Mary” (2026). My initial thoughts were that this was just another movie with a star-studded cast, trying to land something big, but when I saw the movie, it absolutely launched me into the story, and I found myself completely gravitating towards this stellar movie.
******SPOILERS AHEAD******
Project Hail Mary brings you through every stage of emotion possible. This movie will make you laugh at scenes while your eyes are still blurry eyes from the previous scene, and it does it seamlessly.
Ryan Gosling makes for a fantastic protagonist in his role as his character Grace, feeling like an original although relatable character.
While Gosling’s character takes up the majority of the screen time, with only brief flashbacks to his life before space, he acts in a way that makes you feel like you only need one character to dominate the story.
Now, to be more specific, Grace is the only HUMAN character with the majority of screen time–I have yet to mention his alien companion. Appropriately named Rocky, by Grace. Rocky, who seems to be initially introduced as the comedic companion of our main protagonist, turns into a savior of Earth, and possibly many more planets across the vast universe we are introduced to.
Never once at any single point in this movie could I guess what would happen next, and that is not just from there being a lack of structure in the plot, but moments where I was on the edge of my seat, hoping that everything would work out in favor of the characters. The sheer amount of tense scenes in this movie made me feel like the fate of the real Earth was reliant on Grace and his companion, Rocky.
A note about Rocky–I would have NEVER thought that I would be crying over a glorified pet rock.
Okay, all jokes aside, Rocky is an amazingly well fleshed out character. The moment that Rocky sacrificed himself to save Grace, I heard sniffling in the full theater from young and old people alike.
Truthfully, I could go on forever about how much I love this movie, and it is the perfect one for families, a date night, or any other occasion and is absolutely one you should go see.