Review: The intimate spectacle of ‘Project Hail Mary’

This image released by Amazon MGM Studios shows Ryan Gosling in a scene from "Project Hail Mary." (Jonathan Olley/Amazon MGM Studios via AP)

Based on Andy Weir’s 2021 novel of the same name, “Project Hail Mary” is a contradiction. An intimate spectacle, it’s a huge, Spielbergian movie that’s also a moving, odd-couple story with curiosity and awe infused into every frame.

Told on a broken timeline, “Project Hail Mary” begins with molecular-biologist-turned-middle-school-science-teacher-turned-astronaut Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) awakening aboard a spaceship. Alone — the rest of the crew expired years ago in their pods — he can’t remember who he is or the nature of his mission.

As Grace’s memory slowly returns, the details of Project Hail Mary come into focus. Life on Earth is threatened by a sun-eating microbe called “astrophage,” and it is his job to figure out a way to stop it before the planet is plunged into an extinction-level deep freeze.

As Grace pieces together the details of his life and task, he discovers he is not alone when he encounters a spaceship on the same mission. The lone passenger is Rocky (voice of James Ortiz), a faceless, rock-like alien with five arms who comminates via musical chords through vents in his head.

With a shared sense of purpose, the unlikely duo forms a friendship that just might save both their worlds.

The script, written by Drew Goddard, who also adapted Weir’s 2015 film “The Martian,” simplifies and streamlines the scientific source material, but never dumbs it down.

Fans of Weir’s novel will get a dose of Grace’s scientific process, but it is the film’s approach to tried-and-true concepts of co-operation, cross-cultural understanding and sacrifice that are at the forefront.

The back-and-forth between Grace and Rocky, often jocular but occasionally profound, lies at the film’s heart as an uplifting antidote for today’s polarized world. For example:

“Fist my bump,” Rocky said.

“Fist bump,” Grace responded. “It’s just fist bump.”

It’s a funny back and forth, but their budding relationship is cemented with Rocky’s simple, Yoda-like pronouncement: “You are friend now.”

It’s a science-fiction story that works, despite one of the main players resembling a rotisserie chicken made of stone.

As an everyman who has heroism thrust upon him, Gosling is the ideal leading man for co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. He generates chemistry with the above-mentioned stone alien puppet and brings humour — plus a knack for physical comedy — and heart to keep things interesting, even when the movie’s 156-minute runtime slows in the mid-section.

The last name “Grace” carries some symbolic heft in “Project Hail Mary,” stationing the character as a last chance for salvation, but it is the movie itself that delivers grace in the form of uplift, compassion and a sense of wonder.

It’s the kind of film will make you feel better when you leave the theatre than you felt on the way in.

4 stars out of 5