Look, I’d read 2/3s of the Andy Weir book before settling into my comfy chair and annihilating a family sized bag of Maltesers. The novel was fantastic, if a little hard on the not so simple maths angle, and I worried that us simple folk would struggle with all the quantum physics malarky.
Then I remembered that this feature is made by the folks behind (take a breath), Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, Jump Streets 22 and 23, were involved in the Spider-Verse flicks, Lego Batman, Lego Ninjago AND Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Project Hail Mary is that rare thing, a big, ambitious sci-fi film that never loses sight of its sense of wonder. Balancing high-concept science with humour and genuine heart, the film manages to feel both expansive and intimate at the same time. It leans into the unknown with confidence, trusting the audience to keep up while still delivering something deeply human at its core.
Visually, it’s a standout. The effects work is exceptional without ever feeling overwhelming, grounding the story’s more out-there elements in something tangible and believable.
Space feels vast, isolating and occasionally beautiful, and the film uses that scale to its advantage. There’s a real sense of craft here, a huge number of practical effects, in camera effects and puppet work. There’s nothing flashy for the sake of it, just consistently strong, immersive world-building.
Performance-wise, the film is carried with ease by its central cast, with a lead turn from Gosling that anchors the story emotionally as well as comedically. There’s a natural charm to the delivery that keeps the tone from tipping too far into heavy sci-fi territory, while still selling the stakes.
The supporting elements, including the film’s most unexpected dynamic (if you’ve read the book, you know), add warmth and depth without ever feeling forced. Gosling’s central relationships, on earth and in the unending vacuum of space, are engaging, believable and relatable. His hero is anything but, until he has no choice but to try. Just, flipping well try.
In fact, though comparisons are being made to the worthier, Nolan-helmed Interstellar, and where that film’s centre hung on the sadness of time passing, this one bares more of the hallmarks from the classic lone man on mission flick, Silent Running.
I’m not ashamed that I cried three, four, maybe five times and I laughed a lot too. Unusually for a Luxembourg audience there were plenty of audible guffaws to be heard in the theatre stalls.
Sandra Hüller’s straight talking Eva Stratt and Lionel Boyce (you’ll know him from The Bear) as Carl are perfect foils to the be-cardigan-ed Grace and the gut punches that are revealed as our adventurer pieces together his past are delivered perfectly.
It’s a film for the whole family to boot. There’s enough danger and peril to keep the bigger kids interested and enough bangs, booms and bright colours to keep the younger ones away from their phones. Albeit temporarily.
The soundtrack from Daniel Pemberton deserves a special mention too, subtly enhancing the film’s emotional beats without overpowering them.
If there’s one slight drawback, it’s that the ending(s) feels a touch too neat compared to the complexity of what comes before.
It doesn’t derail the experience wholesale, but it does soften the impact just enough to keep it from being absolute perfection. I cannot wait to watch this again.
Project Hail Mary is screening at Kinepolis, see it on the biggest screen possible.
Fist my bump indeed.
