Message Dan and Mike

Four months ago we did a first look on Project Hail Mary and walked away genuinely excited. Now that we've seen it — Dan nearly three times, Mike once — we're ready to give it a full review.

Ryan Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a molecular biologist moonlighting as a middle school teacher who wakes up alone in deep space, no memory intact, on what amounts to a suicide mission to save Earth from extinction. The film is dense and ambitious, and once it finds its footing — roughly an hour in when Grace meets the alien life form Rocky — it becomes something pretty special.

We talk about what Lord and Miller pulled off here given the scope of the production, Gosling's continued growth as one of the most versatile actors working today, and the inspired work from puppeteer James Ortiz and his team of five (the Rocketeers) in bringing Rocky to life. We also get into the book-to-film changes, the runtime debate (the first cut was reportedly three and a half hours), cinematographer Greig Fraser's contributions, Sandra Hüller's Eva Stratt, and an unexpected Meryl Streep cameo that earns its laughs.

We draw comparisons to The Martian, weigh in on the ratings discrepancy between Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, and debate whether a sequel is even a good idea. Dan recommends it. Mike calls it a great family film. We both agree it could have been tightened.

Project Hail Mary is streaming now on MGM+/Amazon Prime Video and may still be playing in select theaters near you.

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