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
No comments:
Post a Comment