The book was amaze, amaze, amaze. But is the movie five thumbs down?
In May of 2021, Andy Weir, author of the critically acclaimed novel The Martian, released his newest novel Project Hail Mary, and it was an instant classic. Five years later, the book is now more popular than ever and still at the top of many people’s favourite books. Last week, the film adaptation of Project Hail Mary released in cinemas, and you’d have been blind not to see any of the immense praise it’s been receiving. Many reviewers have been calling it an instant classic, a modern-day sci-fi epic that’ll be remembered for years to come in the same vein as Interstellar or Inception. But is this praise deserved? Does it live it up to the hype of the book? Well, as someone who has both read and listened to the book multiple times, walking into my session the other night, I had immense expectations and have some incredibly strong opinions on the film.
What is Project Hail Mary?
The book by Andy Weir follows the story of Ryland Grace, a middle school teacher who has been tasked with saving the human race from imminent extinction. The only problem is that he doesn’t know any of that. When he awakes in a coma onboard a spaceship light-years away from home, he can barely remember his own name, let alone his mission.
Why is it so special?
The Project Hail Mary book reignited my love of reading after a major slump when one of my best mates gifted it to me. I finished it within two days, which is still the fastest I’ve ever finished a novel. I simply could not put it down. I shared it with my father, who also adored it, and my family put up with us talking about it for years. I’ve seen many friends who weren’t the biggest readers find their spark for reading through this novel and I think that alone is what makes this piece of work so incredibly special. It reads and feels like a blockbuster film, so the translation to the screen feels natural.
Does it live up to the hype?
Ryan Gosling was far from my first choice to play the intelligent idiot that is Ryland Grace. But he quickly proved me wrong. Whilst he definitely has his “Gosling” mannerisms with his signature funny scream and witty humour, he also perfectly blends the heavier moments and tear jerking scenes with the films humour. On this, the book itself is genuinely a riot of a fun time, but the film dials up the humour to eleven, especially with one of Gosling’s key co-stars.
Going into the film, I knew that Greg Fraser was the film’s cinematographer (Dune, The Batman), so the film was always going to look beautiful. But it wasn’t just physically beautiful to look at, its soundtrack, and overall design made this movie gasp worthy in nearly every other scene. Project Hail Mary felt like the mesh of an arthouse A24 behind-the-scenes team with the budget and production value of a Hollywood blockbuster.
The core conflict at the centre of the book and the film is certainly the imminent death of billions of life forms, but this isn’t the story. The story is really about friendship, the ability to overcome immense odds, and sacrifice. The film, which set out to adapt a 450-page novel in 156 minutes, has to make sacrifices in what it chooses to focus on for the sake of run time. Personally, I’d have sat through a full 4-hour version of the film, but I understand other audiences might not have. So to make the dense novel work within the run-time, it chooses to take some liberties in what it cuts.
If you’re a fan of the book and you’re worried about it making some major changes, then I’ll put your mind at ease. The major plot points of the book are left nearly fully intact with zero to no changes at all. The film still plays out with Ryland solving the crisis in tandem with him remembering how he got there and who he is back on Earth. There are some cosmetic changes (like a particular characters voice, or how they feel about eating), but nothing story shattering. The only major flaw I had with the film was that its pacing was very up and down. Additionally, in sacrificing story to make the film work, I was left wanting more from the earth setup plot line. The Earth plot line was gutted of almost all of its substance to make room for the fun antics on the Hail Mary. I completely get why they did this, the story on the Hail Mary is the priority and what people do want to see; however, I feel that we’ve lost too much from earth that by the time the earth story line ended, I wasn’t as attached to some of the characters as I should’ve been. Plus, the earth story shows how dire and desperate the mission really is, and whilst it is physically said many times in the movie, we don’t get to see it anywhere near as much as the book shows us (also they made Stratt like way nicer it’s weird).
Overall, Project Hail Mary is a great book adaptation, easily one of the best I’ve seen put to screen. It’s an immensely joyful and heartfelt ride handled by a team that clearly cares a great deal about the source material. I personally think I may be suffering a touch from someone who read the book too many times and had too high expectations. The movie is amazing and deserving of its praise, and if this was how I got to experience the story for the first time without reading the book, it would definitely be a 10/10 for me. But since it makes such a point of being loyal to the book, this feels like a rare occasion that comparing it to the book so frequently seems appropriate.
Project Hail Mary is a near perfect adaptation, making necessary sacrifices for the sake of run time. If they ever release an extended edition, refining some of the pacing and showing off the effects of the crisis on earth more thoroughly and raising the stakes just slightly, it would be a perfect 10. But until then, I’ll give it a 9.2/10 (until I see it a second time and fall deeply in love with it)
Did you make it this far, question?
