Project Hail Mary (2026)

PG-13, for scary scenes, I guess?  I don't remember that much that would justify a PG-13 over a PG outside the fact that the demographic is for an older audience.  The most morally dubious scene is the scene where a bunch of astronauts who are going on a suicide mission discuss ways that they think about killing themselves.  One of those methods involves heroin.  That's probably not the most kid-friendly scenes.  I was thinking that Project Hail Mary might be the closest thing we've gotten to an old school summer blockbuster where the movie is made for adults, but kids could totally handle it?  

DIRECTORS: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

I think Weebly purged all my bot numbers.  I've always suspected that my mildly high numbers were always inflated by bots.  I hoped my numbers weren't that many bots.  But this is the way of the world.  Anyway, I saw Project Hail Mary for my birthday!  Isn't that a nice birthday present?  My wife and kid saw it weeks ago and I was always bummed that I didn't get a chance to see it opening night. But I was also happy that my daughter and my wife got a chance to bond over a movie based on a book got my daughter more than mildly obsessed.

And people were preaching this to be the return of cinema.  I have lots of thoughts on that and I want to be on that side so badly.  I really do.  Honestly, Phil Lord and Chris Miller are some of my favorite creators.  That was way before the Spider-Verse movies.  I was a big fan of Son of Zorn and The Last Man on Earth.  The notion that there's a cut of Solo: A Star Wars Story out there created by these two madmen is one of those lost pieces of art that I might think about from time-to-time for the rest of my life.  I know that these guys are more than brilliant.  So understand that, while I may not seem the most enthusiastic guy about Project Hail Mary, I think it is a work of art.  It's just that this work of art is only very good for me as the audience as opposed to genius for the rest of the world.  

I want to get to my "why" in a second.  I want to explore the role that content plays in bringing people back to the movies.  I'm both an artsy-fartsy film snob while simultaenously enjoying popcorn blockbuster goodness.  I think high art is high art and low art is low art and movie theaters should be home to both.  I know that, in the promotion of this work, Ryan Gosling took the onus off of the audiences for the death of the movie theater and put it on Hollywood.  The concept of his message was that if Hollywood made better movies, people would be coming out to the theaters.  I get where he's going and I'm not wholly in disagreement with him.  I do think it is throwing generations of filmmakers under the bus.  I do think that the past decade has created some amazing cinema and I do think that the advent of new technology --more convenient technology --has hindered the role that movies play on box office.  It's almost horrifying how few movies my students have seen.  Do I think that great movies might bring people back to the theaters?  Yeah, probably.  But do I think it is an incredibly daunting task to expect perfection out of each movie that is released in theaters?  Yeah, probably.  Project Hail Mary is pretty good. It's got an amazing cast with some pretty buzzworthy directors.  It's based on a book that broke the cultural zeitgeist.  There was so much going for it that it is almost ignorant to say that every movie can play the same hand.  Honestly, if Project Hail Mary was a dud, it would be a crime because everything was basically handed to the filmmakers.

Note: I hate me for being kind of "in the ballpark of Project Hail Mary but not actually talking about the film yet" too.  I do want to talk about Andy Weir.  It's so easy for me to get offended, guys.  Andy Weir offended me.  Not only that, but he used something that I love to offend me.  I talk about Mission: Impossible III a lot for this element of my blog.  I now love Mission: Impossible III.  It might be one of my favorite entries, if not the favorite.  But when it came out, I didn't enjoy it because Tom Cruise was being a lot.  This is jumping on couches Tom Cruise.  I watched that movie and couldn't stop seeing weird Tom Cruise instead of Ethan Hunt.  Andy Weir kind of tainted my viewing of that movie.  He has since apologized for this event, but it felt like it was the most non-apology ever.  Andy Weir started talking smack about a lot of Nu-Trek.  I like all Trek.  And it's okay for you not to like what I like.  But he claimed the reason that he didn't like Nu-Trek was because it was always so woke and political.  Yeah, Star Trek is meant to be political.  It's there to do that.  Also --and this is my big beef with what he said --all art is meant to be political.  He claimed that he intentionally avoided politics in his art and he wanted people to just enjoy a movie.  See, I was a fan of high art and low art, as I mentioned.  But even low art has politics attached to it.  I don't want people shutting their brains off and just have fun.  I want people to be challenged.  It seems like such a privileged position for Weir to be like "just enjoy this.  It's fun."  

By the way, even if Weir didn't want it to be political, it still is.  Even beyond its attempt to be apolitical.

Okay, let's talk the actual movie.  The one thing --and I'm probably saying this for the first time ever --is that I wished that I saved the book for after the movie.  This is not a book v. movie discussion.  I believe that books are books and movies are movies and I'm going to enjoy both.   I'm just saying that I didn't wish that I read the book first because 1) the movie is really close to the book (for the most part) and 2) the story of Project Hail Mary is incredibly plot heavy.  Like The Martian, also written by Andy Weir, STEM is the core of problem-solving in these stories.  I loved loved LOVED The Martian.  But I never read the book. (I'll get around to it.) The story of Ryland Grace is fascinating because we have a character who has savant level talents solving incredibly complicated problems.  With a long book, those problems present themselves and he has to take a bit of time unpacking those problems.  Those problems are challenging and the solves are, while being STEM-y, incredibly satisfying.  Here's where, as a viewer who has read the book, I have a problem.  I know what problems are going to arise and I know the solves that are going to accompany those problems.  And they're basically in the same order.  Is it fun watching Ryan Gosling and Rocky solve those problems?  Absolutely.  It still is a rolicking good time.  But in terms of any suspense?  I know exactly how and why everything is going to be solved.  It's kind of why I love the new It movies.  The It movies hit the same character beats, but took different turns to get there.  That means that the scares were in new spots.  That was satisfying.  In terms of plot, I knew where this one was going.

But Lord and Miller aren't dopes.  They know what's up.  They understood that their source material was, in a way, kind of sacred.  After all, it's really hard to make an adaptation out of something that is so scientifically specific.  Weir knew his stuff and coupled it with what had to be years of research and unpacking to make something like Project Hail Mary.  I'm just now thinking that it might be impossible to make changes there.  But, against all odds, both The Martian and Project Hail Mary have incredible amounts of heart --which is funny because I just realized that both stories are stories of science in isolation.  Still, Hail Mary has the benefit of a second character.  And that second character is the most adorable puppet character despite the fact that he's a rock character.

This means that I'm putting all of my emotional investment into a rock.  Listen, I know the story works.  It's a gorgeously shot story about a guy who is both simultaneously a good guy and a coward.  There's meat there. But what do I care about?  Rocky.  I know everyone's all about Rocky.  I honestly feel a little guilt in this very moment.  Because I want to explore that end.  (I mean, I still might.  I have that much guilt.)  But I feel so basic saying that Rocky is the core of this movie.  I talked about it with my wife's cousin.  Do you know who she was excited to see?  Rocky.  He's a little rock guy and he's got some alien sass.  I almost don't care that Andy Weir spent oh-so-much time figuring out some very challenging science and math.  Nope.  Rock guy says funny things and we care when he gets hurt?  That's absolutely the movie.  And you put him across from Ryan Gosling?  Yeah, that's a movie that is worth watching.  I don't care if you read the book.  I liked him in the book.  I like him even more as a movie character.  Do you know why?   Maybe it's the fact that that I had a hard time picturing him in the book sometimes.  Still, the movie version is pretty great objectively.

Do you know what?  I'm not going to talk about how the end made Grace a coward who would have sacrificed humanity.  It's my favorite part of the story and it makes Project Hail Mary a little bit of a dangerous story.  I think we all can piece the importance of that ending together without me belaboring morality.  It's a great ending.  

Yeah, I wish I saved the book for after the movie.  I'm not going to stop reading before the movie normally.  Heck, they just announced a Dungeon Crawler Carl series and now I want to really shotgun those books.  Still, it's an objectively good time.