Amaze? Let’s HAIL MARY as 2026’s much-needed feel-good feature…

When school-teacher Ryland Grace wakes up on a space-craft years after launch, he begins to remember the events that led him there. He’s been charged with helping save the Earth from a cosmic infection that could destroy our sun, but nothing could have prepared him for a fellow traveller on a similar mission from an entirely different star-system.

But can two very different beings from such very different places learn to communicate, find common ground and fist their bumps before all hope is lost..?

While marketing might try to convince you otherwise, there’s very few ‘must-see’ films nowadays. Studios will try sneaky ways (and a ton of popcorn buckets) to get you through the doors of the local movie theatre, but spending millions on marketing is still no substitute for pure word-of-mouth.

So far, 2026’s word-of-mouth movie is Project Hail Mary and while its central theme is not an original idea, it’s executed with a sense of scale, urgency and whimsy that’s undeniably attractive right now.  What Project Hail Mary definitely is, is a balm for a world that really can’t turn on a single screen without getting depressing damage reports on every level. While televisions show the worst kind of human nature and self-serving actions on a daily basis – even to the point of openly celebrating them – Project Hail Mary does the opposite. It’s about using initiative and finding seemingly impossible common ground. But if there’s an old-school simplicity to the premise of the story and its essential optimism, then it’s not entirely sugar-coated either.

Gosling plays Ryland Grace as a frustrated everyman who knows he’s far from perfect and possibly in above his head. He’s scientifically savvy and lateral-minded but quite happy to be a ‘simple’ school-teacher with his previously high-flying career being grounded by theories ridiculed by his peers.  He doesn’t resent the world, but he feels no reason to raise his head above the parapets again.  When it appears that his theories were right and could actually save the human race, he’s drafted in by the government. He agrees to offer some insights if pushed, but then, everyone’s on their own. He doesn’t (and never did) want to be a hero, never mind an astronaut who might have to sacrifice his life and future to give the Earth a chance of survival.

The other half of this cosmic Odd Couple is Rocky, the alien life-form he meets and who becomes essential to finding a cosmic solution. The character is something of a triumph, especially given it/he is, for the most part, a practical effect. Voiced by James Ortiz and given movement by a group of skilled puppeteers in a less-than-ideal close-quarter space-craft, it isn’t long before you’ll fully accept Rocky as a living, breathing and sometimes intentionally-awkward assemblage of organic rocks with a growing personality and even a sense of humour. Like a small boulder in a Picasso’d hamster-ball or a cross between Interstellar‘sTARS robot and Castaway‘s less-responsive Wilson, Rocky assumes a presence you can’t ignore.

The film is based on the novel by Andy Weir who also penned The Martian (with Drew Goddard once again partnering to bring it to the screen). There’s a similar mix of high concept, scientific-(or usefully near-adjacent) solutions, curiosity about life and looking at what people can do on a practical level when pushed to their limits. Like that Matt-Damon feature, the pace is restrained and slow-burn (sometimes too slow, though it doesn’t feel like its 156 minute running time). There’s inevitable touches of other sf movies in here, but without ever feeling pillaged: tonally, there’s definitely Silent Running, Gravity, Apollo 13 and Arrival on the list, though Project Hail Mary manages to feel more ‘fun’ and family-friendly than more serious hard-science fare, even when tackling more fateful stakes.

There’s no antagonist here except circumstance, a rarity for Hollywood movies who prefer a boogeyman or punch-up. Given the premise, it’s mainly a Grace/Rocky two-hander, with the weight on Gosling to be our guide for the incredible journey. There are flashbacks – pre-launch vignettes dished out in small pieces that inform Grace’s returning memory after months of ‘hibernation’ and give us a supporting cast that briefly includes the likes of Sandra Hüller, Lionel Boyce, LOST‘s Ken Leung and Milana Vayntrub (perhaps best known as Lily Adams, the anchor of AT&T‘s commercials for so many years).

Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller – who previously helmed the animated Spider-Verse and Lego movies – this is a more mature, live-action movie in the sense of subject-matter but still has a glint-in-the-eye, subversive tone in script and lightness of touch that should play well to almost all ages. (One can imagine science-teachers treating their students to this as a fun, talking-point reward for hard work and I, for one, will recommend it to them…)

9/10

Project Hail Mary is now on general release…