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This article is part of\u00a0Upstream,<\/a>\u00a0The Daily Wire\u2019s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories \u2014 from our featured writers to you.<\/em><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n From \u201cStar Wars\u201d to Sandra Bullock, the intergalactic rescue mission has become one of Hollywood\u2019s most overworked templates.<\/p>\n So I was skeptical when I settled in for \u201cProject Hail Mary,\u201d a new sci-fi epic adapted from Andy Weir\u2019s novel of the same name. The film stars Ryan Gosling as a scientist on a last-ditch effort to save the world.<\/p>\n The plot is, admittedly, well-worn. And at its weakest moments, the film dips into the prolonged peril and aimless drift of Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s \u201cGravity.\u201d But ultimately, \u201cProject Hail Mary\u201d succeeds in offering something new. It is a heartwarming story about friendship, sacrifice, and the grace of finding something worth living and risking your life for. It blends the best of Christopher Nolan\u2019s \u201cInterstellar\u201d with Weir\u2019s own \u201cThe Martian,\u201d and may be the finest performance of Gosling\u2019s career.<\/p>\n The plot revolves around a mysterious intergalactic organism discovered spreading across solar systems, draining stars of their fuel, and hastening their collapse. This poses something of a problem for humanity, which relies on the sun for energy even more so than the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n With no military solution available, the United States joins forces with the rest of the world to spearhead Project Hail Mary \u2014 a literal last-ditch attempt to save civilization. Scientists soon discover that one distant star alone appears immune in an otherwise infected galaxy, prompting a one-way mission to investigate the source of that immunity and relay the findings back to Earth.<\/p>\n One of the film\u2019s strengths is its believable hero. A high school science teacher with a PhD in molecular biology who flamed out of academia after a controversial but daring thesis sunk his reputation, Grace is a far cry from the roughnecks turned astronauts who save the world in Michael Bay\u2019s \u201cArmageddon.\u201d<\/p>\n Upon awakening from a medically induced coma aboard the interstellar ship lightyears from home, Grace pieces together the mission through a series of flashbacks, alternating between his lonely presence in space and his memories of the events that led him there. The structure works well, gradually filling in both the mechanics of the plot and the contours of Grace\u2019s character without sacrificing momentum.<\/p>\n But what gives Project Hail Mary its heart and distinguishes the film in such a saturated genre is the unlikely friendship that forms between Grace and Rocky \u2014 a bizarre extraterrestrial life-form resembling an animated boulder formation he encounters along the way. Following an extended and amusing sequence in which Grace, after mapping Rocky\u2019s range of beeps and rhythms to English words, cycles through voice options ranging from a sprightly Irish gentleman to a seductive phone-sex operator, he settles on a charming, faintly Stephen Hawking-like rhythm redolent of Dug from Disney\u2019s \u201cUp.\u201d Their relationship is the film\u2019s emotional center and by far its most rewarding achievement.<\/p>\n The early moments of contact between them are suffused with genuine wonder. Grace\u2019s first glimpse of Rocky\u2019s alien ship \u2014 an elegant, Art Deco-like vessel the size of the Empire State Building gliding through the void \u2014 is enchanting. As are the scenes in which the two cautiously learn to communicate, discovering not only each other\u2019s language and biology, but that their meeting is no accident. Rocky is on a parallel mission to determine why this lone star is immune and use that knowledge to save his own world. In a genre crowded with stories about intergalactic war, conquest, and sheer firepower, there is something refreshing about a science fiction film in which survival depends instead on problem-solving, ingenuity, and cooperation.<\/p>\n For all the film\u2019s surface resemblance to \u201cInterstellar\u201d or \u201cThe Martian,\u201d its spirit is much closer to Steven Spielberg than Nolan. Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, whose backgrounds are more rooted in comedy (\u201c21 Jump Street\u201d and \u201cBrooklyn Nine-Nine\u201d) bring a buoyancy and warmth that keep the material from being bogged down by increasingly abstract and high-concept ideas which have plagued Nolan\u2019s more indulgent works \u2013 \u201cInterstellar\u201d was borderline affected but \u201cTenet\u201d was firmly mired by its own conceptual weight. \u201cProject Hail Mary,\u201d by contrast, conveys the unvarnished and unapologetic sense of amazement seen in the iconic scenes of such Spielberg classics as \u201cClose Encounters\u201d or \u201cE.T.\u201d<\/p>\n That said, \u201cProject Hail Mary\u201d is not without its own indulgences. At a sprawling two-and-a-half hours, it occasionally drifts and feels unnecessarily languid. The lethargic slow burn of the first act is understandable; the film needs time to build its world and its central relationship. By the climactic third act, you are cheering for Grace and Rocky with enthusiasm tantamount to a live sports game. But there are moments that feel unnecessary. The film could excise multiple scenes of Ryan Gosling sleeping, or an extended karaoke sequence that lingers through several verses of a Harry Styles song without losing a beat.<\/p>\n The tension, however, when it arrives, is palpable. One particularly gripping sequence finds Grace and Rocky descending into the atmosphere of a nearby planet to collect samples at the risk of being torn apart by its gravitational pull. Even with the understanding that the film is closer in tone to Disney than to Ridley Scott\u2019s \u201cAlien,\u201d the film still manages to generate gripping suspense.<\/p>\n Speaking of Disney, there are also faint echoes of Marvel in the film\u2019s tonal register, particularly in its impulse toward humor \u2014 even amid dire circumstances. But where Marvel\u2019s house style often feels glib or emotionally evasive, the levity here is deployed far more intelligently. With such minimalist casting \u2014 this is, for the most part, a one-man Ryan Gosling show \u2014 the humor becomes a narrative tool rather than a mechanism for undercutting emotion. Gosling plays Grace as a charismatic, endearing goofball, a man with the intellectual gifts of Oppenheimer but the whimsical comic timing of Ken in \u201cBarbie.\u201d\u00a0 It is a delicate balance, and Gosling makes it look deceptively easy.<\/p>\n If the film has a weakness beyond its occasional pacing lethargy, it lies in its music. The jukebox choices, including The Beatles\u2019 \u201cTwo of Us,\u201d are serviceable enough, but they lack the transporting emotional force a great original score from a talent like John Williams might have provided.<\/p>\n Even so, \u201cProject Hail Mary\u201d triumphs because it understands that spectacle and CGI alone do not make a movie. Its heart and soul lie in the enduring relationship between Grace and Rocky, and in the notion that salvation may ultimately depend less on brute force than on intelligence, loyalty, and the willingness to trust an alien from another world \u2014 that he has the personality of a golden retriever certainly streamlines this. At its lowest points, the film drags. But at its highest, it shines. This is populist cinema in the best sense: earnest, crowd-pleasing, and suffused with enough wonder to make even a familiar cosmic premise feel newly alive.<\/p>\n Harry Khachatrian (<\/i>@Harry1T6<\/i><\/a>) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner\u2019s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a software engineer, holds a master\u2019s degree from the University of Toronto, and writes about wine at <\/i>BetweenBottles.com<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n