PROJECT HAIL MARY (2026) ★

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have had a terrific run of wringing surprisingly rich work out of unpromising-looking genres: cop-buddy comedies (the Jump Street films), toy tie-ins (The Lego Movie), animated superhero fare (the Spider-Verse films, as producers). So I was interested to see how they would handle a more culturally dominant genre: the big-budget space adventure (interest especially piqued by the fact that this represents their second attempt at the genre: they'd been the initial directors on LucasFilm's Solo: A Star Wars Adventure until they got fired for "creative differences" and Ron Howard finished the film.)

So how do they do? Well, it must be said that the results aren't perfect: we could criticize the dramatic unwieldiness of the third-act crisis, the clumsy blocking of the probe-retrieval setpiece, some occasionally handwave-y science, a product placement that's a bit too prominent, the offputting reminder that MGM is now part of Amazon, whatever.

And yet to focus on the flaws is to deny Lord & Miller a clearly won victory here. Attempting to make a big, crowd-pleasing, mass-market science fiction film is no small challenge; having it succeed in the marketplace is a major accomplishment; but the more admirable achievement is that they have attained a gargantuan level of mainstream success without losing integrity or pandering to a lowest common denominator. This is a big-budget space adventure which includes only one big action sequence and only one explosion. Instead its interest and investment is generated by small-scale dramatic moments, abundantly delivered and handled unerringly: moments of bravery, sacrifice, camaraderie, discovery, determination, celebration. It's a movie which repeatedly builds moving and arresting scenes out of simply showing characters explaining things, communicating generously, collaborating effectively, solving problems, building friendships, and extending care. This skillset, sadly deprecated in much of what now passes for public life, is one that badly needs reaffirmation in the 2020s and beyond, and I can hardly begrudge a film for dramatizing it so winningly (with a charming, affable lead performance from Ryan Gosling, tremendous puppet and voice work from James Ortiz, and stunningly beautiful cinematography from Greig Fraser). 

(Credit should also be paid to screenwriter Drew Goddard, whose long career spent working on TV shows like Daredevil—and, of course, Buffy the Vampire Slayer—mirrors Lord and Miller's own history of delivering satisfying genre fare that ably hits the marks but also exceeds expectations by never renouncing a dramatist's interest in telling a substantive story about well-drawn characters facing meaningful choices.)

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