From Owen Gleiberman’s Project Hail Mary review, posted on 3.10.26:
“Project Hail Mary will likely be a hit, but [it’s] a cosmic adventure that feels diagrammed, if not programmed, to be The Movie We Need Right Now. It never stops figuring out ways to make you fall in love with it.
“Forgive me if I say it’s not very good.
“Ryan Gosling is a middle-school science teacher in nubby sweaters, because his research as a molecular biologist was rejected by the establishment as too radical. But it turns out that he was right about everything. When the sun begins to lose heat, he’s recruited by the powers that be in Washington, represented by Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), an official of stoic Euro command who’s the head of the Hail Mary project to save Earth.
“Gosling’s performance in the Earth sections is quite winning, [but] the film feels padded, whether it’s stopping in its tracks for Eva to do a full-blown karaoke version of Harry Styles’ ‘Sign of the Times’ or spilling over into a finale that doesn’t know where to end.
“The sentimental dilemma of whether Gosling, at one point, is going to go forward with the mission or turn the ship around to save Rocky the alien is string-pulling of a very generic order.
“Project Hail Mary will likely be a hit, but the movie we need right now — or, really, anytime — is one whose drama extends beyond its ability to push our buttons.”
Plus it runs 156 minutes, for Chrissake.











