PROJECT HAIL MARY (2026)

Genre: Sci-fi/Adventure
Director: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung, Milana Vayntrub, James Ortiz, Priya Kansara, Mia Soteriou
Runtime: 2 hr 37 mins
Rating: PG (Some Intense Sequences)
Released By: Sony Pictures
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 19 March 2026

Synopsis: Science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship light years from home with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. As his memory returns, he begins to uncover his mission: solve the riddle of the mysterious substance causing the sun to die out. He must call on his scientific knowledge and unorthodox ideas to save everything on Earth from extinction… but an unexpected friendship means he may not have to do it alone.

Movie Review:

A decade ago, Ridley Scott’s ‘The Martian’ saw screenwriter Drew Goddard deftly adapt Andy Weir’s book of the same name for the big screen. It was – we dare say – one of Scott’s finest movies in recent years, buoyed by a droll performance from Matt Damon that brought warmth and wit to an otherwise stark tale of isolation and survival. Given its resounding success, it is not surprising that Weir and Goddard would attempt to once again catch lightning in a bottle.

‘Project Hail Mary’, adapted from Weir’s third book, is the result of that endeavour. Like ‘The Martian’, it is a story of a scientist alone in space who uses ingenuity, humour, and relentless problem-solving to accomplish a near-impossible mission – this time, instead of simply staying alive while NASA races to bring him home, our protagonist Ryland Grace has to race to save our Earth’s sun from being snuffed out by tiny extraterrestrial bacteria known as astrophage.

But first, Grace must re-establish just how he ended up on a vast spaceship streaking towards a distant star, with two other dead crew members on board. Several years in an induced coma have fogged his memory, and in a series of elliptical flashbacks, Grace will not only come to recall his mission to the distant star Tau Ceti to find out why the same astrophage invasion has not dimmed its glow, but also the unlikely process of how a once-prominent molecular biologist turned middle-school teacher came to be the principal scientist on an intergovernmental last hurrah to save the Earth from a potential mass extinction event.

At close to two-and-a-half hours, despite the valiant efforts of directing duo Phil Lord and Christopher Smith, ‘Project Hail Mary’ does feel like a voyage in and of itself. Much of the movie rests on the indomitable charm of Ryan Gosling, who as Grace carries the film with a mix of wry humour, vulnerability and quiet resolve, turning dense scientific problem-solving into something unexpectedly human and deeply engaging. Indeed, there are long stretches of the movie where Grace is the only living creature onscreen, and it is to Gosling’s credit that the film doesn’t lose its pulse as a result.

Even more outstanding is how Gosling navigates his character’s deepening friendship with an alien astronaut that comes in the form of a three-foot-high pile of sentient rocks, a stony, spider-like creature whom Grace nicknames Rocky (voiced and puppeted by James Ortiz). The latter’s homeworld is under similar threat, and both Grace and Rocky end up banding together in the name of interstellar solidarity – not only do they teach each other their respective languages, Grace and Rocky become scientific buddies to study the nature of the astrophage, and eventually mount a daring joint expedition to harvest samples from the perilous atmosphere of Tau Ceti’s world.

As unlikely as it is to imagine Grace and Rocky’s dynamic as a buddy movie, that is exactly what they pull off so magnificently here. Perfectly complementing Lord and Miller’s lightly comic tone, Gosling turns on his charismatically goofy charms to enliven the unlikely pairing. “They toot to scoot,” Grace explains to Rocky how the astrophage use light to increase their velocity, while shaking his head when Rocky turns a fist bump into a “fist the bump”. It is no small feat being able to project character and empathy from within an alien rock, and the fact that Lord and Miller manage to do so and with such poignancy is impressive, transforming what could have been a purely cerebral sci-fi into a genuinely moving story about friendship, trust, and shared survival across the vast emptiness of space.

On the other hand, those expecting spectacle should be warned that while there are a couple of edge-of-your-seat sequences, especially in the last third of the movie, this is not a film that thrives on ‘big bangs’ (pardon the pun); instead, it is plenty happy to revel in both the science and humanity of the mission at hand, while trusting its three-time Oscar nominated star to sell us on an everyman thrust into extraordinary circumstances. And that is also another way for saying that fans of Weir’s book can rest easy – this adaptation is as faithful as it gets, and most importantly, confidently avoids action-driven blockbuster tendencies in favour of a thoughtful, empathetic old-school Spielbergian romp.

Grounding Grace’s solitary odyssey are supporting turns that give the film both texture and moral weight. Eva Stratt (‘Anatomy of a Fall’s Sandra Hüller) emerges as a bracing counterpoint to Gosling’s everyman – steely, unsentimental, and wholly committed to the mission, embodying the hard choices that underpin humanity’s survival; while Lionel Bryce injects a welcome looseness and humanity into the Earth-bound sequences as a G-man assigned to watch over Grace, a reminder of the lives and relationships at stake. Together, they widen the film’s emotional aperture beyond Grace’s one-man mission, reminding us that this is not just a story of survival, but of collective sacrifice.

If ‘The Martian’ was about ingenuity against the odds, ‘Project Hail Mary’ ultimately lands not as a spectacle-driven blockbuster, but as a quietly affecting story about cooperation, sacrifice, and the fragile threads that bind us – across planets, species, and the vast distances in between. 

Movie Rating:

(A faithful and quietly affecting follow-up to The Martian, Project Hail Mary blends science, humour, and an unlikely interstellar friendship into a character-driven story about ingenuity, sacrifice, and cooperation against existential odds)

Review by Gabriel Chong