Review: https://letterboxd.com/kienanana/film/project-hail-mary/
I watched this with Liz at Filmhouse (first time going since projector closed) and it was an incredible experience. It was great to see such a packed theatre at filmhouse, and the crowd was just great to be watching this alongside. You could hear everyone laughing their asses off for the entire first half, and then slowly transitioning into lots of sniffling and sobbing. This was directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the guys who directed the Jump Street movies, the first Lego Movie (a masterpiece), and have also produced many other influential projects like the Spiderverse movies. I love these guys and I genuinely don’t think they’ve ever missed and I am so glad that they are the ones telling this story. There’s just so much heart in this film, bordering on being excessive joybait. That being said, it was well deserving of all the smiles and laughs it got out of me, every single one. I think Ryan Gosling and Sandra Huller are incredible castings, and I just love how Ryan Gosling has reinvented himself from the moody, sullen persona he used to portray in films like Blade Runner / Drive for example into this endearing and almost maximalist caricature of the good parts of millennial humour. He is perfect in this role and I’m happy to put it in early Oscar conversations. Praises aside for a moment, I do think the final act of this movie suffers a bit from being clunky and ending like 20 different times, but I’ve heard from a friend that the book was the same way so I guess I’m glad that they were really faithful in adapting this story ? Anyways the cherry on top that really cemented my love for this film was the fact that they apparently didn’t use any green screen, and went with practical effects / those fancy LED screen studio thingies. This, combined with the enlisting of Greig Fraser (Dune / Rogue One / The Batman) as cinematographer makes for an INCREDIBLE looking movie, just stunning honestly. I reallyyyy need to see this in IMAX for a rewatch. I’m so filled with joy and hope and I mean the movie did throw everything at the wall for 2.5 hours trying to evoke emotions but it did it well! It did it realllyyyyyyy well. 5 Stars.