Project Hail Mary
Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller · Ryan Gosling
Science Fiction · 2026-03-20
“Ryan Gosling is charming enough to carry a two hour science lecture, which is precisely what Project Hail Mary is: The Martian with a bigger budget and an alien roommate, now buffering quietly on Prime.”
Project Hail Mary is Andy Weir doing the thing Andy Weir does, adapted by the people who once made a LEGO movie feel like a philosophy seminar. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller take Weir's novel, the one from the guy who already gave you The Martian, and hand Ryan Gosling the role of Ryland Grace: a lone astronaut who wakes up on a last-ditch mission to save a dying Earth and, instead of losing his mind in the silence, forms an unlikely alliance with an alien. It opened to 140.9 million dollars worldwide, the biggest March opening ever for a non-franchise film and a record debut for Amazon and MGM, so nobody can say the pitch did not land.
Here is the catch: it is The Martian with a bigger budget and a roommate. Same premise of a resourceful human science-ing his way out of certain death, now with an alien buddy to explain the homework to, which is charming and also exactly why Variety shrugged and called it not a very good movie, knocking the length and the deja vu. USA Today went the other way entirely, crowning it the first great movie of 2026 and praising Gosling as a superb everyman who makes the hard science feel accessible. Both are right. Gosling is charming enough to carry what is, underneath the spectacle, a very well produced two hour science lecture. The science is accessible. The runtime is not.
So the movie that stormed cinemas in March has now drifted onto Prime Video, which is honestly its natural habitat. This is the film you half-watch on a laptop while doing three other things, catching every third line of astrophysics and still following the plot, because the plot is a man, an alien, and a problem. It is crowd-pleasing, it is derivative, and it is exactly good enough to keep on in the background. For a record-breaking blockbuster, that is a strangely modest ending, but it is not a bad one.
- 01
Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace: a genuine movie star doing the lonely-astronaut everyman thing well enough to anchor the whole ship by himself.
- 02
It makes hard, real science accessible and even crowd-pleasing, the rare blockbuster that treats the audience as smart.
- 03
The unlikely human-and-alien alliance gives the survival story a beating heart instead of just a whiteboard.
- 04
The spectacle is real and the money is on the screen: a 140.9 million dollar opening weekend does not happen by accident.
- 01
The runtime. Two hours of well-produced explanation is a lot of explanation, and Variety was not wrong to flag the length.
- 02
It is deeply derivative: The Martian with an alien twist, from the same author, so the deja vu is baked in.
- 03
For all the record numbers, the critical verdict split hard, with Variety flatly calling it not a very good movie.
- 04
It often plays more like a slick science lecture than a story, leaning on exposition where it needs tension.
Anyone who loved The Martian, likes their science accessible, and is happy to watch Ryan Gosling charm his way through a rescue mission.
Anyone allergic to two hour runtimes or hoping for something genuinely new rather than The Martian remixed with an alien best friend.
You opened to 140.9 million dollars, the biggest March debut ever for a non-franchise film and a record for Amazon and MGM, and got crowned the first great movie of 2026 before the ink dried, right around the time Variety was calling you not a very good movie. Four months later that record-breaker is a Prime Video thumbnail scrolling past between a cooking show and a true crime series. The hype was theatrical. The reality is a second-screen watch. Both can be true, and the marketing knew exactly which one to sell you back in March.
Your website, CV, or whatever you made. I'll roast that too.
A full teardown from €2,99. No mercy.