Editor’s Note: Freeline Media’s movie critic, Mike Fried, has the scoop on new films that are streaming. Worth a watch — or stay away? Read on!
By MIKE FRIED
Project Hail Mary
**** 1/2
A man walks wakes up on a spaceship and has no idea who he is or how he got there. I know that sounds like the beginning of a bad drunk joke, but that’s what happens.
The man is Ryland Grace, a doctor of microbiology who has become a science teacher at Grover Cleveland Middle School in Someplace, USA, recruited by a worldwide task force because there is a powerful phenomenon occurring in outer space that is causing our Sun to slowly die out. It’s expected that within 30 years half of the world‘s population will die out with it. Grace wakes up alone in the middle of outer space with his two crewmates dead and he must try to figure out what to do. Thankfully, he gets a little help along the way.
When I first heard they were adapting Andy Weir’s terrific novel of the same name, I was extraordinarily dubious about what the outcome would be. The novel is such a grand piece of space fiction, as well as being extraordinarily funny, that I knew that in the wrong hands the movie could be nothing more than a hash.
Thankfully, this movie ended up in the right hands — that is to say, Phil Lord and Chris Miller. I shall call them “LordMiller.”
LordMiller has created an absolutely wondrous piece of entertainment. Impeccably cast, well written – especially well written – well acted and well designed, this is the type of movie you go to the movie theater to see.
Ryan Gosling captivates as Grace, the science teacher who was drafted against his will into this mission. The movie is full of humor that is especially suited to Gosling‘s personality, and he carries the film for the most part. In fact, when I read the novel, I pictured Gosling in the lead role so the fates must have been aligned. He was able to laugh at his alien co-star’s lines because sometimes they were voiced by his daughters through his earpiece.
Sandra Hüller is on hand, excellent in what really amounts to a tiny – but important – role as Eva Stratt, the head of the Hail Mary Project. She is a tough boss, humorless, but Grace gets her to loosen up. Who among us can resist Gosling’s charms?
Lionel Boyce has a nice supporting role as Carl, Grace’s guard turned buddy and they have a fun interstitial at the Home Depot shopping for supplies in order to test the samples retrieved from outer space. Ken Leung and Milana Vayntrub portray Grace’s doomed crewmates.
One of my biggest concerns in adapting the novel is how they would portray Rocky the alien and, to me, the success in doing so is why the movie works so well. Voiced and puppeteered by James Ortiz and worked by several additional puppeteers, Rocky truly comes to life. And I have to give credit to the filmmakers because they did not take shortcuts. In the novel, Rocky lives in a Xenon-based atmosphere that is fatal to humans. The filmmakers could’ve dropped this aspect of the plot, but they didn’t, and they fully leaned into it, which made it much more enjoyable for readers of the novel.
The set design was absolutely extraordinary, and it had such great detail that it was great to look at. The cinematography was absolutely outstanding and what ratcheted up the enjoyment for me was the filmmaker’s use of a variable aspect ratio (IMAX enhanced) with a 2.39:1 aspect ratio on earth, pre-mission, and a full screen 1.90:1 aspect ratio in space. I am a total sucker for the variable aspect ratio, so it made the film extra enjoyable for me. The set design as well as the cinematography was very reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey, especially in those long, wordless segments.
What was done especially well was the screenplay by Drew Goddard who also adapted Weir’s The Martian. With Grace waking up in the middle of space and not knowing where he is or who he is, we the audience are as befuddled as he is. So, what Goddard does is show us in flashbacks on how Grace got to where he is. But in addition, these flashbacks are packed with salient information and dosed out to us at the appropriate times so that we can get immersed in the scientific aspect of the story. This was really an unexpectedly well-done adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel, just as the Martian was before it, but I would argue that the Martian was an easier novel to it to adapt. There are a couple of funny vocal cameos, but they’re not that important except as to the fact that LordMiller very much decided to maintain the comedic tone of the novel, and that made the film enjoyable.
Going back to the flashbacks – which, I should add, were used in the novel — they also served another very good purpose: to help the pace of the film. This film is over 150 minutes long and it felt like it was 90 minutes long because of the excellent pacing that was accomplished by the directors and editors. That is a testament to a well-constructed film. There was not a time where I looked at my watch (did he say watch? Who wears a watch anymore? I do and not one of those Apple thingamajigs but an analog watch!)
I think in the next couple of weeks if it is still playing at an IMAX theater, I’m going to take an extra-long drive to my not-so-local theater to see it in IMAX because it really was a fine, fine movie and I’m already contemplating purchasing it when it comes out on 4K. For those of you know me, that’s the highest compliment that I can pay a film.
If I had a critique, the movie seemed to me to be a pastiche of elements from space movies that came before it, but these ideas are woven so well into the fabric of this story that it really doesn’t matter because we are treated to a visually dazzling feast and who cares if it is a crowd-pleaser? Since when is that a bad thing?
This is a high recommend. All Hail (Mary) LordMiller.
WATCH IT!
Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.
Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.
