The Packers and Film

Leading up to the release of Project Hail Mary, I was generally pretty excited for it. Ryan Gosling has been one of the more consistent and successful movie stars of the past decade, with films like Drive, Blade Runner 2049, La La Land, and many more. In addition, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have been incredibly successful directors and producers, releasing both Spiderverse movies, the Lego Movie, 21 Jump Street, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I have enjoyed almost every single movie Lord and Miller have produced. And then the trailers began to come out for Project Hail Mary, and I was even more excited. The visuals looked great, and I saw that the film also starred Sandra Huller, who gave one of my favorite performances of the decade in the 2023 film Anatomy of a Fall. I was all in on this film, and I could not wait for it to come out. However, that started to change when the reviews began to come out.

One of the main sites I use for movies is Letterboxd. I scroll through reviews and news daily on the site, and I consistently post my own reviews on the site. I generally trust it, and when a movie gets a high rating on the sight, I make it a personal mission of mine to seek it out. That being said, when I see a movie with an incredibly high rating, I tend to get extremely high expectations for the film, and when I saw that Project Hail Mary was one of the top 100 highest rated movies of all time on Letterboxd, I started to get a little worried. I did not think that I would dislike the film, but I was worried about my standards and expectations being so astronomically high that nothing could have lived up to it. So, I tried to keep a level head, tried not to focus too much on the reviews, and then I watched the movie. It is as good as the reviews say.

Walking out of the theater, I was absolutely in awe. I was happy, inspired, and full of hope. The movie absolutely delivered on every aspect. Gosling was perfect. He nailed the delivery of Grace, the comedy, while bringing the humility of a man far over his head that is still doing his best and choosing to do the right thing. The visuals were stunning. I read that Lord and Miller used a lot of practical effects for the film, and it is evident that they did. The film is incredibly vibrant, and the puppetry work done with Rocky was astounding. Drew Goddard also did an incredible job with the script. I have not read the book, so I am unaware what he left out of the book or what he added, but either way it felt like he did a great job of fleshing out the characters in the film. Gosling’s Ryland Grace felt so human. He was so confused and lost, but wanted to do the right thng. I was also equally impressed with the character of Rocky. With an alien like that, it would be easy for that type of character to be incredibly annoying. It has happened in several different films, such as Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars. However, Rocky was written in such a way that he never gets annoying. He is the heart of the film, with a lot of incredibly funny, heartfelt, and some surprisingly poignant lines.

All in all, Project Hail Mary was a joy from beginning to end, with a great central performance from Ryan Gosling and incredible visuals.

Rating: 9/10