Project Hail Mary

Official Australian release date: 19/3/26. Viewed: 21/3/26.
Directors: Phil Lord & Christopher Miller
Actors: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Huller, James Ortiz, Lionel Boyce
Genre: Sci-Fi
Rating: M

‘Project Hail Mary’ is a hopeful and semi-believable sci-fi film, based on Any Weir’s excellent novel. It takes the problem-solving of ‘The Martian’ to another level, this time with Ryland Grace (Gosling) waking up in deep space and then having to overcome his temporary amnesia to figure out how to save the sun from the “astrophage” disease. The flashbacks fill-in the gaps as things progress, and we learn how a school teacher ends up working with Stratt (Huller) & Carl (Boyce) as part of the global taskforce trying to figure out how the astrophage works and save the sun/Earth/solar system.

Therefore, most of the film takes space onboard the Hail Mary spaceship, with Grace talking to cameras that are recording him, until an alien spaceship finds him – very impressive CGI and design on that ship. How Grace meets Rocky, the alien who looks like a spider-made-from-rocks, and learns to communicate with him and then code a translator (Rocky’s voiced by Ortiz) is handled well and is both fun and unique. The friendly alien concept isn’t often explored in non-kid films, so it’s good to see. The CGI is very impressive, and not overwhelming, but the scene at the mostly-green planet is amazing.

The score is strong, and due to Rocky and Grace being able to talk to each other, there’s plenty of jokes and funny moments, with a fun buddy-film element. There’s obviously some drama and life-or-death moments that bring gravitas to things. Some of the ‘how’ is skipped over compared to the novel, but it’s mostly faithful, and does well to cram so much into the 2.5 hours, whilst never feeling boring. Excellent ending, and wouldn’t be surprised if Gosling gets an Oscar nomination.

Overall: Brilliantly executed sci-fi journey

Gav’s Rating: 4.5 stars

Cold Storage

Official Australian release date: 12/3/26. Viewed: 15/3/26.
Director: Jonny Campbell
Actors: Joe Keery, Georgina Campbell, Liam Neeson, Lesley Manville
Genre: Comedy/Horror
Rating: MA

‘Cold Storage’ is a quick and fun zombie-comedy, but more from the prevention/start angle, rather than the ‘Zombieland’ overrun angle. We start in Western Australia, where a bit of space debris has a mutating fungus, and Robert (Neeson) & Trini (Manville) are called in to deal with it. Stuff happens, and it’s then put in literal cold storage in Colorado. 20 years later, and Teacake/Travis (Keery) and Naomi (Campbell) are working at the no-longer-military-facility that’s just storage lockers. What could go wrong?

While nothing particularly new happens, the CGI is solid and the infected animals/people quite grotesque. It effectively plays as a funnier episode of ‘The Last of Us’, with the infected not really being “zombies”, but rather short-term carriers. Keery is good and will be interesting if he can jump from ‘Stranger Things’ into more films. He brings a lot of the humour and energy, and has good chemistry with Campbell. Neeson is mostly a bit-player, but good to see him not doing ALL the stunts/saving-the-day!

Solid score and soundtrack, a few little jump scares, but definitely more comedy-horror than horror. Decent body count and all wrapped-up in under 100min. Pacing is mostly good and final third is action-packed.

Overall: Solid comedy/horror fun

Gav’s Rating: 3 stars