Project: Hail Mary - It's A Foosball Term

Welp...I only saw one movie this month. I'm on a new exhausting work schedule and there wasn't a whole lot I wanted to see. Next month, however, will have lots of good stuff. Horror and Grogu hits theaters. Should be fun time...just have to hope I don't fall asleep during them.

The one movie I was able to see this month was Project: Hail Mary. Based off of the book Ryan Gosling is a brilliant science teacher that needs to save the world. There's a sciencey space thing (Petrova Line) that's draining the sun of its energy. He's tasked with finding a way to stop it.

The story structure goes from the present day (him on a spaceship/working to solve a solution) and the past (what led to him joining the space team/why he's there).

Most people hate the flashback structure of movies and books. It's easier to go chronological of course, but sometimes you need to go back and forth to tell a good story. You don't want to reveal all your secrets and show all your cards out of the gate. For this movie, it worked in its favor.

You get the main story before jumping ahead to the mission. Ryan Gosling's Ryland Grace studies the particles from the Petrova Line and discovers what they are and what they do. So he's tasked to help the European Space Agency on a mission to a nearby sun that's being infected by the same thing.

A team of astronauts and scientists (including the ATT girl Lily) head there to study it and find a way to reverse the effects. Ryland wants no part of the space adventure and just wants to stay and teach and live his normal life until the world ends.

Then we see him wake up from a pod. He has no memory of how he got there and everyone's dead...so you know, not good for him. As his memories return, he starts the mission, studying the particles with the help of an alien scientist on the same mission.

He's a rock and after figuring out how to break the language barrier using math they team up. Grace also gives him a name and you'll never in a million years guess what it is...Rocky.

The two bond while trying to save their worlds from unparalleled disaster.

While I haven't read the book and can't speak to what worked and didn't on that end, I enjoyed this for what it was. A space adventure.

For a majority of the movie, Ryan Gosling is acting by himself. When he's in the present its just him and Rocky, a computer generated thing. Either he was looking at a tennis ball or a person crawling around in a screen capture outfit. He put on great performance.

The bromance between the two was on point. They're great friends who were working to save their worlds and both were absolutely brilliant.

The narrative structure, as I mentioned, worked in its favor. You get pieces of how he ended up on the ship and headed through space and him working with Rocky bonding as they work to save everyone.

It's a fun time and as long as it is, it never felt two and half hours. The pacing was on point and I was genuinely invested in the story. I highly recommend this one. Watch in theaters before you leave for the scope of it, or watch it at home for the great story.

4/5 would see again.