Project Hail Mary review: Ryan Gosling's new sci-fi movie is a mesmerizing and profoundly moving near-masterpiece that needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible
· TechRadarTechRadar Verdict
To quote Project Hail Mary's cute co-lead Rocky, Amazon's new sci-fi movie is nothing short of "amaze, amaze, amaze". You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll bite your fingernails — and you'll leave your screening with your faith in humanity restored thanks to an adorable, arachnid-like alien.
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Light spoilers follow for Project Hail Mary.
Project Hail Mary (PHM) is a movie I've been itching to see for some time. The second book penned by sci-fi author Andy Weir to be adapted for the big screen — the first being 2015's extremely well-received The Martian — PHM has all of the ingredients necessary to similarly be critical and commercially successful.
Sometimes, though, said components — the cast and crew, production, and translating a story from page to screen, to name just three — don't gel as well as they should. Color me relieved and delighted, then, that Amazon's latest silver screen vehicle is not only an emotionally resonant and eye-popping visual experience, but also a near-perfect masterpiece that's a shoo-in for 2026's best movies list.
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A direct retelling of the nonlinear narrative in Weir's 2021 hard sci-fi novel namesake, Project Hail Mary introduces us to Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), a junior high school teacher and infamous former molecular biologist.
Waking from a coma, a disoriented and amnesiac — and, after surveying his surroundings, understandably panic-stricken — Grace finds himself aboard a spaceship 12 light-years from Earth.
Project Hail Mary's overarching narrative is one built on hope, optimism, collaboration, and companionship
Eventually, Grace remembers why he's here: the Sun is dying. In fact, all but one of the galaxy's known stars — Tau Ceti — are waning at an incredibly rapid rate.
Consequently, Grace has seemingly been sent on a one-way mission to discover the root cause of this cosmic phenomenon, learn why Tau Ceti isn't affected by it, and — potentially — find a cure. Fail, and the catastrophic ice age will engulf our world in approximately 30 Earth years. No pressure, then.
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