Project Hail Mary (2026) Review

It’s already rare for a modern big-budget Hollywood production to adapt a book that results in a feature with a largely solitary character. It’s even more rare for that level of production to forego the use of green screens and opt for an entirely practical set. For those reasons alone, I have to respect Project Hail Mary as something of a Hail Mary itself, regardless of any other aspect of the film.

As a film of pure spectacle, it features beautiful, busy, and surprisingly experimental set design and cinematography. It’s no surprise that the unique cinematography is one of the main draws, as it shares its cinematographer (Greig Fraser) with the Dune films. Many shots feature countless, dizzying layers of lighting, glass, projections and aesthetically wild framing, especially in the earlier parts of the film when we are first being introduced to the spaceship.

I was originally skeptical of the marvel-style sidekick Rocky that was prominently displayed in trailers for the film, but even that cynicism sort of melted away when I found out that Rocky, too, was totally puppeteered throughout the film. Even the decision to maintain Rocky’s abstract design- faceless, and designed as some strange mix of spider and rock- deserves some serious credit for falling far outside the bounds of the typical Hollywood sensibilities for a film this large. Rocky largely works as the likable, childlike sidekick of the film’s protagonist, which is great for a family film.

Now, does the film have issues? Of course. It’s a crowd pleaser, and it’s absolutely formulated as a family film. Characterization and character arcs are minimal at best, with most of what we learn being fed through flashbacks to the days before Ryan Gosling’s character was sent to space to ostensibly save the world from a mysterious star-eating life-form. There are moments of drama scattered across the film, but they never quite break through to any significant heartache because the film simply did not prioritize emotional depth.

What it did prioritize was spectacle, and in this case, I think the spectacle was worth the cost of admission, especially when compared to the comparatively depthless void that are Marvel and DC films.

These days, there are few crowd pleasers that have at least some artistic merit. Project Hail Mary was obviously crafted with a very talented team across the board, and they took significant risks in wanting to deliver a film that honored the tradition of practical effects and would fit within the existing cannon of dramatic, crowd pleasing space films. Project Hail Mary succeeds in that regard, and in some ways, it reminded me of Castaway, Wilson and all.

Does it venture into reddit-joke territory? Of course, it’s about a high-school science teacher befriending a pet rock. But, taken in the genre that it’s in- family crowd-pleasers- it absolutely punched above its weight. Ryan Gosling also went above and beyond the Ken-doll performance I thought he would give, and at points, delivered a surprisingly emotional performance in contrast to the script he was given, which was goofy, unbelievable, and an obviously escapist fantasy for all audiences.

If you can shelve pretension and cynicism for 2.5 hours, you will probably enjoy the film enough to walk away happier than when you came in. If you go in expecting 2001 A Space Odyssey, of course you will leave disappointed, but that should be obvious.