Project Hail Mary

Incredible cinematography and score, but it runs away with itself sometimes. It is very pretty to look at, and I enjoyed a lot of the music (even if I wish they sometimes cut off the score/talking). They characterized the main character really, really well. I must say I went expecting a main character far more grating based on my reading of the martian.

The subduing of the reddit-ish humour and the expanse of emotion made it incredible. Knowing that he was forced into it adds a sense of realism and three dimensional aspect to Grace, and was one of my favourite scenes. Ryan gosling was of course, incredible.

Some things I did not like was how it rarely takes a moment to pause and soak in the grandness of everything. It happens from time to time but its always too short, and as a sucker for 2001 esque long shots, I was left wanting more.

It also falls a little flat on the science aspect (I have heard the novel is better, and the martian was better, although much less grand in scale). It is either so prudent that it fails to inspire wonder, or so implausible that you fail to see how that could ever happen (the spaceship moving at near light speeds being easy to build, really?)

Again to contrast with the martian, I found the movie did moments of despair very well. The martian was so lost in making its character competent, able to overcome all adversity, that moments when things went bad became a routine that you know would be overcome. Hail Mary doesnt fall into the same pitfall till its ending, which it drags along for a while. I didnt enjoy how much it chased its ending, the fake endings and multiple encounters of rocky with situations that should’ve have had so much more weight failed to inspire anything inside me. Maybe this is a stupid take but I almost wish rocky had actually died or was left in a state where Grace had to choose between him and going him, instead of how they went about it with the out of nowhere contamination.

Anyway, for all my criticism of it, I am largely nitpicking. A better ending and this wouldve been an experience almost as enjoyable as interstellar for me, but as of right now it was still very solid and amazing to look at. Again wish they kept more moments of restraint and quiet. Still, a nice 4.2/5 from me.