Project Hail Mary

That’s how the most memorable character in Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s sci-fi odyssey would phrase it, at least. Based on The Martian author Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, Project Hail Mary is a sweet, ridiculously entertaining crowdpleaser whose joyous approach to scientific inquiry and the search for knowledge is best encapsulated by an oft-misquoted Breaking Bad line: “Yeah, science!”

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It’s also an ode to human ingenuity and our desire to explore as much of the universe as we can, even if it’s just to save our little pocket of it. After learning that the sun is dimming at an alarming rate due to a star-eating bacteria known as Astrophage, the world’s governments band together to prevent half the global population from perishing within 30 years. Crops will fail, resources will be hoarded, wars will start — unless a last-ditch effort led by a woman named Eva Stratt (an excellent Sandra Hüller) succeeds, that is. Familiar but distinct, that premise is emblematic of the story’s overall appeal: Weir’s storytelling is based in hard science and tried-and-true tropes that he tweaks just enough to make them feel novel.

Our unlikely hero is Dr. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), a middle-school science teacher recruited to work on what’s being called Project Hail Mary due to a poorly received paper he wrote postulating that water isn’t necessary for life. Stratt wants people with heterodox views, believing that a contrarian streak is exactly what an emergent crisis like this needs; as she semi-inspiringly puts it in her signature monotone, “The alternative is to just do nothing.” Gosling, who’s preternaturally skilled at exhibiting everyman likability and movie-star glam all at once, is perfectly cast as a how-did-I-get-here protagonist who wakes up alone on a spaceship with, indeed, no memory of how he got there.

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What he does know is that he won’t be returning from wherever it is he’s headed, as Project Hail Mary was designed from the beginning as a one-way mission because there simply isn’t enough fuel for a 24-year round trip. Gosling is at his most charming here, delivering a performance that helps Project Hail Mary strike a near-perfect balance between end-of-the-world seriousness and just-go-with-it joy verve — something it also achieves by gradually revealing itself as an interstellar buddy comedy. For while Grace is indeed alone in his ship, the Hail Mary isn’t the only spacecraft trying to discover the secret to neutralizing Astrophage.

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Onboard the other ship is a spider-like creature made of rock whom Grace affectionately names (what else?) Rocky. With his boundless enthusiasm and sing-song manner of speaking that Grace slowly learns to translate, Rocky is the most endearing alien this side of The Mandalorian’s Grogu. A skilled engineer with no eyes but an abundance of sass, Rocky seems all but certain to become a fan favorite. The bond that forms between them is genuinely heartwarming, which is to say that the real Project Hail Mary is, quite literally, the friends we made along the way.

“The alternative is to just do nothing.”

Perhaps most importantly, screenwriter Drew Goddard’s screenplay retains the page-turner’s defining quality: fun. He earned an Oscar nomination for his adaptation of The Martian and has also penned episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost, and The Good Place in addition to writing and directing The Cabin in the Woods. In other words, he was ideally suited to tackle this particular project. Just as Weir’s novel jumps off the page, Goddard’s script brings moments big and small to life in a way that’s sure to please those familiar with the source material and newcomers alike. “What do we expect to find?” asks one character before the expedition is launched; viewers will surely wonder the same, and be consistently — and pleasantly — surprised by the answers.

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Lord and Miller, best known for The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street, are game as well. Project Hail Mary features stunning imagery in both the extraterrestrial and earthbound sequences, never more so than when Grace orbits a red-and-green gas giant in order to collect a sample of its atmosphere in hopes of figuring out how to neutralize the star-eating cells. This is the kind of big-screen experience meant to lure casual moviegoers into the theater, which is truly where it should be seen. So, to answer as Rocky might, Project Hail Mary very good, statement.