Project Hail Mary is a heartfelt space voyage with showmanship to spare

Rocky as seen in Project Hail Mary

Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller know their way around visuals. Having cut their teeth in animated storytelling on Clone High and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, the duo understands the power of impactful imagery or a killer visual gag. Even when they're just writing and producing, like on the two Spider-Verse masterpieces, dazzling eye candy and moving visual details abound.  Project Hail Mary (which is based on an Andy Weir novel of the same name) constantly reaffirms those skills so perfectly well-suited to adapting novels. Dialogue-free segments or grandiose set pieces reveling in outer space's beauty offer something new compared to the wondrous word-driven literature realm. 

Lord & Miller's sensibilities ensure Project Hail Mary stands on its own two feet as a motion picture. They also guarantee that this production crackles as an excellent time at the movies. Turns out the guys with a tremendous filmmaking track record have done it again.

After making 21 Jump Street and Lego toys into delightful movie projects, Lord & Miller, working alongside folks like screenwriter Drew Goddard, have set their sights on astronaut Grace Ryland (Ryan Gosling). He begins Project Hail Mary waking up in deep space with no memory of how he got there or who he is. Recurring flashbacks reveal Ryland is a middle school teacher reluctantly recruited by Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller) to help with a critical project. The solar system's sun is dying thanks to microscopic organisms that nobody understands. Eventually, a plan is concocted to send three astronauts to the distant star Tau Ceti, which is somehow not dimming. Perhaps answers lie there for how to save the Earth's sun.

As these non-linear digressions crop up, Ryland tries to control his spaceship (bound for Tau Ceti) all on his lonesome. He's a scientist, not an astronaut, pilot, or anyone who should be out amongst the stars. Soon, though, this underdog lead makes a shocking discovery. He's not the only one trying to figure out what's going on with a dying sun. There's also an alien named Rocky (voiced and puppeteered by James Ortiz) on the same mission. Otherworldly life is real, and Ryland quickly finds that such organisms are fun to socialize with. This inexplicable friendship could prove critical on the duo's daunting quest. It truly is a hail mary operation...hey, that's the name of the show!

Perhaps my saying that I adored Project Hail Mary is unsurprising and not worth much. After all, I've adored so many other Lord & Miller projects (though even their producing credit couldn't make Strays tolerable), hopeful sci-fi movies like The Martian are my jam, and I can't get enough of puppets. Still, it's one thing to assemble yummy ingredients on a counter. It's another to actually boil them into a taste gumbo. The wide array of artists assembled for this sci-fi epic remarkably coalesces these promising elements into an excellent final form. Ironically, despite the production's grand, star-hopping scope (which is all the more towering if you watch it on an IMAX 70MM screen like I did), Project Hail Mary's joys come from more nonchalant circumstances.

Early on in the film's runtime, an enjoyable montage occurs concerning two characters making a run to the hardware store. It's an adorable sequence featuring elements like creating an impromptu bowling alley in an aisle, tossing objects into a cart, and realizing at the last minute you really need Sour Skittles. Meanwhile, Stratt's most memorable scene involves her crooning Harry Styles at karaoke in a cramped aircraft carrier bar. Ryalnd and Rocky have so many enthralling sequences where they're just trading banter or acting like roommates. Project Hail Mary is about imperiled stars and interstellar travel, but it never loses sight of the people threatened by elements like the sun dying out.

Another benefit of that intimate scope? It offers plenty of chances for Rocky to excel as a character. District 9 writer/director Neil Blomkamp lamented back in 2009 how he wanted to go even weirder with the designs of that film's "Prawns" aliens. However, "they had to be human-esque because our psychology doesn't allow us to really empathize with something unless it has a face and an anthropomorphic shape." Like Mickey17's gigantic beetle-esque critters, Rocky is the culmination of Blomkamp's vision of totally otherworldly-looking aliens anchoring mainstream cinema. Rocky's got no face. No eyes. There are so many design elements ingrained into this figure that should, in theory, make it impossible to invest in him.

However, that commitment to such an unorthodox look for Rocky only makes him more endearing and specific. Unbridled enthusiasm radiates off this creature (particularly when he's in his own little hamster ball inspecting Ryland's spaceship domain) that's impossible to resist. Meanwhile, without a face, James Ortiz, the other puppeteers, and digital effects artists instead suggest so much about his personality with tiny gestures or the way he holds his body. It's incredible how I could fully see and believe Rocky's interior world even with his impenetrable exterior. Project Hail Mary compels audience to see the humanity and spirit within a creature that doesn't look like them to outstanding effect. Blomkamp, your dream has come to fruition!

Ortiz's voice work and puppeteering as Rocky is so impressive that this cosmic being fully registers as another co-star, not a visual effect or a potential ploy for toys. That feat means Ryan Gosling has a terrific co-star to bounce off of. So much of Project Hail Mary is just a two-hander between Rocky and Ryland. It often has more in common with The Dumb Waiter than the sprawling ensemble casts of a typical MonsterVerse feature. Gosling makes that exercise totally transfixing. Even when he's alone at the film's start, he exudes an everyman spirit that feels so immediately authentic. 

While many modern American leading men (Alan Ritchson, Brandon Sklenar, Henry Cavill, etc.) look so brawny that it doesn't feel like anything could challenge them, Gosling (even with his abs and famous good looks) effortlessly suggests Ryland is a normal guy out of his depth. That makes nail-biter set pieces like Ryland trying to retrieve a container of important cosmic material on top of the spaceship so extra engrossing. He's no superhero or Chosen One! He's just a middle school teacher! Get him down from there!

The tremendously involving Project Hail Mary lead characters are emblematic of how this is a movie where everything's firing on all cylinders. Composer Daniel Pemberton, for instance, here continues his hot streak delivering inventive film scores. Of course the Across the Spider-Verse composers would make a space movie score that sometimes sounds like a French jazz group performance. Just as a voyage to the cosmos is rife with unknown variables, so too are Pemberton's orchestral tracks excitingly unpredictable. Cinematiographer Greig Fraser, meanwhile, ensures Project Hail Mary is a glorious-looking enterprise unafraid of bright colors.

Luscious hues of green and red dominate the scene in the film's most spellbinding set pieces. Even in the intentionally drabber Earthbound sequences, Fraser's work still oozes visual specificity (like the camera tilting motif). That includes the varying aspect ratios, which involve Ryland's flashbacks being filtered through narrow widescreen while his outer space exploits take up every inch of the IMAX 70MM screen. Among its many virtues, this choice suggests how Ryland only has fragments of the past. He doesn't have as much information about these events as the adventures he's experiencing right now. Plus, it just looks cool, an incredibly crucial factor for any movie. 

Project Hail Mary is incredibly satisfying. On paper, its accomplishments might seem like no-brainer decisions, but it's shocking how little showmanship or gusto so many modern American blockbusters exhibit. Whereas those titles are wary of bright colors and emotional sincerity, Project Hail Mary embraces them with open arms. Even details like its non-linear storytelling approach, shifting aspect ratios, or use of puppetry feel like rebukes to ham-fisted, visually static tendencies in modern American filmmaking. Best of all, it just leaves your spirit feeling refreshed and heart full without coming off as manipulative. Such accomplishments feel as natural as the wind blowing through your hair when a character like Rocky is around on-screen. I love this alien so much, I'd follow him to the ends of the cosmos.