Geek On Film

Project Hail Mary

• Robbie Holmes

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0:00 | 9:09
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Welcome in to my one or review of Project Hail Mary. Let's head over to our friends at IMDB and look at the summary. Uh, a science teacher wakes up alone on a spaceship. As his memory returns, he uncovers a mission to stop a mysterious substance from killing Earth's son that an unexpected friendship may be the key. This movie was written by Drew Goodard, based on the novel by Andy Weir, and it's directed by Philip uh Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. So Lord and Miller are together again. Um I over at Letterboxed have this as four stars with a heart. Uh just saw the movie, still processing a bit. I think I am in the four-star range uh for this guy, and Amy really liked it. So we'll update this with Amy's review and possibly change and adjust my rating. Uh I don't know if I am amaze, amaze, amaze, but I am thumbs down for sure. Uh yeah, this movie uh surprised me. I've been thinking about it a lot. I've watched a lot of podcasts and listened to a lot of podcasts, and I uh I think I might be a little higher on this movie than I started. So let's talk a little bit about the movie itself. So the movie is set uh in a near future uh or current future where the earth is slowly losing uh temperature because something is eating the energy of the sun. So if this continues forward, they've projected that uh a third of the planet will die, and uh probably even more than that because they won't be able to work together, they won't be able to so enter Eva Strat, who is played by Sandra Hewler, whose job is to wrangle the resources of the planet to try to get them to figure out what's going on. So they eventually come to this realization that there is probably nothing to do except go to this one area where there's one sun that is not being eaten. And uh that is the premise of the movie. Uh, Ryan Gosling plays Ryland Grace, who's a third grade teacher who actually uh has been a published scientist and has pressed that there are probably life forms out there that have not evolved in a water and uh and nitrogen environment, uh water H2O and something else, but uh that there's no nothing special about H2O, I think is a comment he makes. Um so we follow him waking up on a spaceship uh and not really remembering what he's doing, but he has all of his faculties and he quickly figures out that he's there for a reason. And in the process of figuring it out, uh he makes his way uh closer and closer to the sun. Um and when he gets there, uh another ship arrives, and it appears as though there's another scientist, astronaut, who's trying to figure out what's going on. And quickly we come into the realization that there is another creature, that there is a person on that ship, and that person is a rock creature that does not appear to be evolved from water. And that character eventually gets named as Rocky. So I believe the voice of Rocky eventually becomes James Ortiz, but Rocky is actually a puppet that's manned by five puppeteers, I think known as the Rocketeers from the interviews I've listened to. Um God, this is so well done. This the ship, the production design is unbelievable. You'll hear me talk about the awards possibilities, but this is where I want to pit stop. The production design in this movie is fantastic. The actual puppet that is Rocky takes five people to man and to move and manipulate. Um, this movie does not work if Rocky is not believable and if Ryland Grace, Ryan Gosling's character, can't make an emotional connection with a puppet with no face. And it is unreal what is pulled off. Uh, the spaceship itself is this beautiful environment. I listened to an interview with Lord and Miller, and they talked about the fact that they wanted it to have two versions of the ship: one when it is flying, and one when it is stabilized. So that means the entire environment needs to be defined twice. So when you know we we switch over and back and forth, the world needs to work in both directions. And I just think the production design is so it's so practical and realistic feeling, and all the components that lead to connecting with Rocky are so amazing. Um, it all feels so practical. And Rocky uh extends out from his ship a tube that he can go down and it pressurizes it with his environment, and then eventually Ryan Gosling gets into a spacesuit and goes down to his ship. There's a connection that eventually gets made. Um, yeah, what an amazing set of production design, but also like it just feels like we're watching this unfold. I stopped asking questions and I fell into the story. And that's the best thing I can say about a movie like this. It allowed me to like really check my brain at the door and just enjoy what was being presented to me. Um, there's a lot of flashbacks that eventually get us to the fact that like Ryland Grace was asked at the last minute to actually be an astronaut on the ship and be a scientist, and he said no, and they drugged him and they sent him to space. And that move that moment really got me because here is Ryan Gosling playing this character who we like because he's charming and he's Ryan Gosling, and we have to go with the fact that like he was not, he he exhibited like no heroicism in that moment. Um, but I want to go back a little bit further. We have Lionel Boyce in this movie playing Carl, who I think is like a CIA or agent who is partnered up with Ryland Grace, and he is an amazing actor that you've probably seen uh on the bear as the pastry chef. Um, and he's so good with Ryan Gosling. He's playing this very dry character who he's bouncing like Ryland is bouncing off of for a little while, and eventually it almost feels like it becomes a buddy cop movie that they're trying to figure this out together. He brings Carl under into the science, and uh and then we get to this buddy cop and sort of almost like romantic, not like Plutonic ideal relationship between Rocky and Grace, and it's really beautiful. There's so many homages in this movie that I want to call out, like 2001, a space odyssey. There's definitely like you know, ET. This is a movie that really knows the swim lane that it's a part of. Um, I will say, like, there's a music note drop for uh Close Encounters of the Third Kind that is really beautiful. Like it is trying to allow Ryland Grace to figure out how to curr communicate with this creature, so they he uses music because that's the universal language, and then he's using science, and then um eventually he gets to the point where he figures out a translation and it it's it's really beautiful. Um, I'm gonna leave it there. I'm gonna let you go see it so you see the finale and everything that unfolds. Um, this movie is great. I think the more I've listened to podcasts about it, and the more I've talked about it, and the more I've thought about it, I think this might be like a rock solid four, maybe four and a quarter, maybe four and a half star movie. I really enjoyed it. I expect to see it again, but I don't know that I'm gonna get to see it in theaters. So much opening right now, and I'm trying really hard to get back on the horse and get back in the saddle and try really hard to get out more reviews. So that's it for me on this movie, uh, except for maybe let's take a minute to think about um awards possibilities. So I mentioned production design, I would say cinematography, right? In this case, we've got some really amazing uh below the line and and uh people that are working on this, but so we should really call out that the scores done by Johnny Pemberton, uh that score, uh Daniel Pemberton, it's amazing. Uh Greg Frazier, who shot Dune, uh, is the director of photography and has shot a million things. It's such a really good movie. Um, I'm sure we're going to end up in a situation when we have a conversation about casting. Uh the casting here was uh Nicole Abuelero and G uh Gian McCarthy. I just think that you're gonna see an awful lot of this movie being brought to fruition as we get to the uh to the awards time period. Um I expect that our friend uh R Ryan Gosling will likely get nominated for best actor. I think the movie will get nominated for best picture, production design, possibly cinematography, but we'll see. Um adapted screenplay is probably in the works here, possibly on score. Um, I really like this movie. I think you should see it if you get a chance. Um I didn't read the book. I don't feel like I need to read the book. I feel very comfortable with this adaptation. Um, and uh I liked it. I think you will too. That's it for me this time. See you soon. Probably the drama next. Have a good day. Bye-bye.

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Robbie Holmes

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