Project Hail Mary (2026) Review

Project Hail Mary (2026) Review

One of my most anticipated movies of 2026, Project Hail Mary starring Ryan Gosling drops in theaters this weekend. I was lucky enough to see this movie at an Amazon Prime Early Screening at my local IMAX theater. What did I think about this movie? Let’s get started!

The Good

This movie has been receiving nothing but glowing reviews for the past several weeks. I did a blog post at the end of February talking about the early reactions to the film and I struggled to find a review that was even slightly negative. This is an example of a movie where you can believe the hype. This movie is fantastic and will be one of the top movies of the year. The movie is so captivating and engaging because all of the pieces that make the movie work so well. The direction, the humor, the heart, Ryan Gosling’s performances, the story, and all of the technical aspects are top notch and absolutely fantastic. This movie is a classic crowd pleaser blockbuster that delivers everything you want it to and so much more. This is a movie that I think everybody that watches it is going to love it. Like I said, I watched this movie at my local IMAX screen that was almost sold out. My audience was laughing at this movie from start to finish and started clapping at the end of it. There’s not very many times in which my audience broke out into applause at the end of it. 

The reason why the movie is able to work so well is that they had fantastic source material with Andy Weir’s book. I haven’t read the book (I don’t even know how to read), but between this and The Martian he’s shown that he can write great sci-fi that makes for captivating experiences. This movie is going to draw a number of comparisons to The Martian for the very obvious reasons. But this movie is so much different from The Martian. Ridley Scott crafted The Martian to still be fun but a bit more serious. Project Hail Mary is different because it’s the more crowd pleaser type of film. But both films are fantastic at telling this story that’s easy to put the audience into. With this movie, Gosling is given the choice to go into space into a one-way trip to save Earth. That is a central concept that’s easy for the audience to put into and figure out what they would do if they were in his shoes. When you’re able to put the audience into the thinking process of the character, that's when you have an immersive story that makes for a great film and cinematic experience. 

The big reason as to why the movie works as well as it does is because Ryan Gosling is fantastic in the lead role. It shouldn’t be too surprising at this point that Gosling is great in this movie, because when has he not been great? This is the type of performance like Tom Hanks in Cast Away and Matt Damon in The Martian where the film lives and breathes on the shoulders of the main actor. Gosling is 100% able to do all of the heavy lifting in this movie. He’s having to portray the same character that’s feeling so many different emotions. He’s having to play the nerdy scientist on Earth that’s smart but you also have to buy him as an outcast. When he’s in space he has to be more confident and brave while also still being the nerdy outcast. All while having the movie star charisma that Gosling is able to bring to his roles. I haven’t seen all of his movies (including La La Land, I know I’m sorry). I’d say that this is his best performance to date because he’s having to juggle doing so many different things and he’s able to nail all of it. He’s also able to have great chemistry with Rocky, his space campaign in this movie. The film is really built around those two characters and their dynamics. For the first part of their relationship, Rocky isn’t talking which adds an extra layer on top of Gosling’s performance. 

The other thing to talk about here is Phil Lord and Christopher Miller as the directors. When I first heard about the concept of the film I thought that Lord & Miller were strange choices to direct this movie. This movie has their sense of humor and quirkiness, but also shows that they can do something different. There’s one sequence in the film that revolves around retrieving space particles that’s so tense and thrilling and when that sequence was done I immediately went “they deserve an Oscar just for that sequence.” I don’t know if they’ll get the Oscar nomination for Best Directors but they’re 100% deserving of it. That sequence in particular puts you on the edge of your seat as all of this dangerous stuff is happening. It adds conflict on top of conflict to the situation and the mix of the editing and the camera placement creates this incredible sequence that sticks with you. But all throughout the film you get these fantastic sequences that can evoke big emotions from you whether that’s happiness or sadness that are either big flashy sequences or the smaller character scenes. That’s when you have great directors that are able to create very different sequences with different sizes but all of them are effective. 

This film is 100% deserving to be seen on the big screen, in particular in IMAX. This movie’s cinematographer is Greig Fraser who shot Dune, The Batman, and many other great films. He’s probably the top cinematographer working today. Every movie he shoots looks absolutely incredible and deserving of an Oscar nomination. This film is no exception, it’s gorgeous and was a treat to see in IMAX. It’s easy to compare this movie to so many other blockbusters that have the same budget or sometimes even higher budgets but look half as good. The shots in space are incredible to look at and looks like they actually went into space to shoot this film. Some of the environments they explore are filled with green and pink colors that fill the screen with beauty. Even the smaller moments of Gosling in the space craft with the buttons being lit up looks incredible. That’s what’s so impressive about this movie that the big sequences are just as exciting and memorable as the smaller sequences. 

Finally, the film has a nice sharp sense of humor throughout it. The film has a couple of really solid jokes in the first couple of minutes of the film and the film’s humor never lets up until the credits roll. So much of the humor comes from Gosling’s charm and charisma and brings this fish out of water in this wild situation. Once Rocky joins the film it brings in this new type of humor of these two creatures trying to communicate but they’re being a barrier between them. There’s a funny sequence in the middle of the film where Gosling and Rocky are trying to figure out Rocky’s voice and there’s this one voice that happens that got the biggest reaction out of my theater. 

The Bad

The only thing that comes to mind to talk about in this section is that the ending can go on for a bit too long. There’s multiple scenes towards the end that I thought was the end but it kept on going. Every scene in there was really good and needed to be there but the way it was structured wasn’t the best and could’ve been handled differently. Again, nothing should’ve been cut but it should’ve been changed a little bit here and there. 

Final Thoughts: Overall, Project Hail Mary is a pretty fantastic film that’s likely going to be one of 2026’s best. Everything from Gosling’s performance to the story to the direction to the cinematography to the humor made for an immersive experience. This film is 100% deserving to be seen on an IMAX screen or whatever the biggest screen near you is. Go support this movie, you won’t regret it!

The Score: 9.4/10 (A)