Ryan Gosling Stars in Overstuffed Sci-Fi Drama 'Project Hail Mary'

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's lone-astronaut saga wants to be 'Interstellar' meets 'E.T.,' but it's too long and too cutely formulaic.

Published on Mar. 10, 2026

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There are clichés that critics go back to, and when I realize I'm guilty of overusing one (sometimes once can be too often), I'll vow never to use it again. Here's one I did that with: lauding something as 'the movie we need right now.' That's a phrase so cringe I'm ashamed I ever used it. The reason I bring this up is that 'Project Hail Mary' is a cosmic adventure that feels diagrammed, if not programmed, to be The Movie We Need Right Now.

Why it matters

The film was directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who started off as animators ('The Lego Movie') and have the skills to turn the mysteries of space into a catchy techno fantasy. Gosling, who has already anchored one space-travel movie (Damien Chazelle's unfairly maligned 2018 Neil Armstrong drama 'First Man'), makes the hero, Ryland Grace, a charismatic space bro, sheepish and funny and relatable.

The details

The film turns on Ryland's relationship with an alien who joins him onboard, and is like 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' remade as an intergalactic buddy movie. 'Project Hail Mary' wants to be the kind of great escape we need right now, but the reviewer argues it's way too long (two hours and 36 minutes), because there's not much variation to it and everything to do with the onboard alien is far too cute and formulaic.

  • The film opens with Ryland waking up in the spaceship, after decades of lying in an induced coma.

The players

Ryland Grace

The charismatic space bro hero of the film, played by Ryan Gosling.

Eva Stratt

An official of stoic Euro command who's the head of the Hail Mary project to save Earth.

Rocky

The alien who joins Ryland onboard the spacecraft, described as looking like "the Thing recast as a five-legged spider" with no face.

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What they’re saying

“There's certainly an abstract commercial grandeur to it. I saw it on an IMAX screen (it will open on many of those), where it becomes the kind of bedazzling warm bath your eyeballs can sink right into.”

— Owen Gleiberman, Critic (Variety)

“Everything to do with the onboard alien is far too cute and formulaic. We don't think so at first, because his spacecraft is a daunting dazzler (it looks like a giant oil rig made of pick-up sticks), and the creature doesn't have one of those beguiling faces. In fact, it has no face at all.”

— Owen Gleiberman, Critic (Variety)

The takeaway

While 'Project Hail Mary' has a grand, commercial appeal and impressive visuals, especially on an IMAX screen, the reviewer argues the film is overly long, derivative, and too formulaic in its depiction of the relationship between the human astronaut and his alien companion.