Project Hail Mary
Directors: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Milana Vayntrub, Sandra Hüller
Genre: Not the Final Frontier
Project Hail Mary is a science-fiction film but that genre is incredibly broad because those films and TV series can be very scientific or very fictional. The best example of this is Star Trek (the former) and Star Wars (the latter), which have different target audiences and levels of complexity as a result.
Project Hail Mary is more fictional than scientific. While I’m a science nerd to some extent and prefer Star Trek to Star Wars, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t entertained or rated the film poorly. It was well directed, with excellent acting and some impressive special effects. However, the storyline was unbelievable right to its core, where the supposed science background, astronaut performance, alien nature and space travel were all ridiculous.
I’m deliberately not giving away any of the storyline here because some of it is surprising and amusing. It’s worth watching simply because of the relationship between the main human astronaut character and an alien. It’s completely different from the original Alien films (not the majority of the more recent sequels), which were much better from a nerdy, practical and intense perspective.
Project Hail Mary is also completely different to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), which it references a number of times. 2001: A Space Odyssey is the most extraordinary and intense sci-fi film of all time, which still might be representing the future. In comparison, Project Hail Mary is a fun film that will never be referred to by future films, technologies or scientists.
Rating: Two-and-a-half light hours
