I had slightly higher expectations for Project Hail Mary

© Amazon/MGM

Project Hail Mary

As frequent readers probably know, I'm a fan of hard science fiction. I'll try to make a point of seeing new, high-concept sci-fi movies in theaters, especially if they are receiving positive word of mouth. Two of my favorite movies of the past decade or so have been The Martian and Arrival. Project Hail Mary is almost like a combination of those 2 movies, and its based on a book by the same author who rote the novel of The Martian, so it should be right up my alley.

I did still like it. But I also found myself disappointed that it was so "cutesy" and not quite as smart or thoughtful as I had hoped it would be.

Yeah, the rock alien is adorable. And the practical effects looked exceptional. The scenes of Grace and Rocky learning to communicate with each other, explaining concepts that are common to them, but alien to the other, and then solving problems together are the highlight of the movie to me.

And hey! Rocky is from 40 Eridani, which is the same star that Star Trek's Vulcan is supposed to orbit. So that was a fun little Easter Egg! Rocky is a Vulcan. He's a "Rock Spock"!

But Rocky is also a symbol of much of what annoyed me. For every moment in which the two are having slow, thoughtful conversations about the nature of existence, there is also a scene of Rocky running around like an excitable puppy for strictly comedic purposes. It just seems off for a character who is supposed to be a highly-intelligent engineer on an interstellar mission to save his species from extinction.

More generally speaking, this movie leans heavily on the trope of an in-experienced "regular guy" having to bumble his way through an incredibly technically-demanding mission. Yes, the guy is a PhD, so he is a very smart person. This doesn't quite fall into "Mary Sue" territory. But he's a biologist. He's not an engineer, or a pilot, or an astronaut. Yes, he does have months (or longer) to learn the spaceship's functions, but it's still not entirely believable that he would be able to single-handedly figure out how to operate a complicated spaceship. This is what separates Project Hail Mary from the much better movies of The Martian and Arrival. The characters in those movies are experts solving problems within their field of expertise and experience. They aren't middle school teachers thrown into a spaceship with no training at all.

©Amazon/MGM

Grace has to single-handedly figure out how to operate an advanced, experimental spaceship.