Project Hail Mary: Ryan Gosling Makes a Buddy Movie With a Rock

March 2026

 

Project Hail Mary...

 

Has lots of second rate CGI ...

Plenty of cool sweaters...

And the feel of a Lego movie...

 

Which is no surprise ...

Considering who made it...

 

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller...

Proud parents of a previous film about interlocking colored blocks...

 

But isn’t there a rule that movie stars only have to do one space movie...

Because name me one that enhanced anyone’s career...

 

Yet they always seem to feel the need to do one...

Like it’s some kind of film star right of passage...

 

Pitt in Ad Astra, Clooney in Gravity, Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar...

And now Ryan Gosling in Project Hail Mary...

 

Now I’m not talking here about the Star Wars or Star Trek franchises...

Because these are ensemble films...

 

No... it’s the ones where you get to be a lonely heroic astronaut on a dangerous mission...

That draw the big names...

 

But these films are too gadget-driven to earn one an Oscar nod...

The vastness of space is hard to compete with...

And I don’t care how good looking you are...

 

No one looks good in a space suit...

 

So I’m not sure why they do them...

 

And since Gosling has already checked the space movie box with First Man...

I’m at a loss to explain why he signed on to do this movie...

 

Especially after he read the script...

 

For starters...

 

Project Hail Mary crams as many space movie tropes as it can into its interminable 2 hours and 36 minute running time...

 

The hero’s need to go on a dangerous space mission because the earth is dying...

Lost in Space, Interstellar...

 

Astronauts in suspended animation for the long journey...

2001 Space Odyssey...

 

The one-way mission where the hero knows he can’t come back...

Ad Astra...

 

They even threw in a “Trouble With Tribbles” homage from the original Star Trek TV series...

Because Project Hail Mary has rapidly multiplying microorganisms who are eating the sun...

 

(I guess you could call this a post-Covid sci-fi plot point...)

 

But the biggie is ET....because the lonely astronaut gets to befriend a nice alien, Rocky...

Who helps him save the earth...

 

AW....

 

Our hero gets to talk to a friendly rock...

 

Who moves like a Lego character...

 

Now it’s clear this was supposed to be the hook that makes this movie...

 

But seriously, Gosling talking to a rock for hours gets old after a while...

 

Because it’s a rock...

 

And talking to it is like talking to a blank wall...

 

Even if the rock is clever and can make things...

 

And it does appear that this particular spaceship came with a Home Depot attached...

 

Because Ryland and Rocky seem to be able to find anything they need...

From glass panels to metal chains...

 

And I’m not talking about little things here, like a screwdriver...

No these dudes make things that would require a truck to haul...

 

Now most space movies suffer from the same problem...

 

Which is that over time the story becomes unwieldy...

As each new sci-fi plot point gets even more unrealistic...

 

Until they all start to churn like a whirlpool ...

That drags the entire movie down...

 

So after a while my eyes start to glaze over... and I stop caring...

 

And its always the same story...

 

The hero goes on a mission to save something...

Equipment fails...but he always figures out how to fix it...

Then some weird space time continuum things start to happen...

 

Which is usually when these movies go off the rails...

 

Because suspense requires believability...

Which too many sci-fi tales lack...

 

And this is what happens to Project Hail Mary....

 

So even though it has an ending that has a very Bugonian view of humanity...

 

(Check out Bugonia to see what I mean...)

 

Which was a welcome surprise...

 

I’m still at loss as to why Gosling hired on to do this movie...

 

But it’s clear why they wanted him...

 

Because in Project Hail Mary...

 

We get Talk Show Ryan Gosling...

 

Self deprecating, funny, charming...

And oh so nice to look at it...

 

So we get lots of closeups of Gosling...

Because these directors were not stupid...

 

Which did help me make it through a film that was ridiculous on so many levels..

Even for a space movie...

That I couldn’t wait for it to end...

 

But Ryan... I’m still a fan...

 

Even if you did sign up for a stupid movie with a rock...

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That looks too much like something my dog left on the sidewalk...

 

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