Review | Project Hail Mary movie review: Ryan Gosling is stranded in disappointing Martian clone

Ryan Gosling plays an astronaut on a mission to save Earth in this film directed by The Lego Movie’s Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

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Ryan Gosling in a still from Project Hail Mary, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Sandra Hüller co-stars. Photo: Jonathan Olley

Published: 9:00pm, 10 Mar 2026

2/5 stars

Ryan Gosling flies almost entirely solo in Project Hail Mary, a disappointingly derivative sci-fi mash-up of Interstellar, The Martian and Tom Hanks’ desert island drama Cast Away.

Gosling plays former teacher Ryland Grace, who wakes up on a spacecraft. Coming out of years of stasis, he is bleary-eyed and disoriented. With his two fellow crew members dead, he must figure out why he is on board.

Gradually, flashbacks reveal the truth: the sun is being attacked by an organism and, within the next 30 years, the Earth is expected to cool, causing desperate food shortages.

It emerges that he is on an exploratory trip – orchestrated by Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), head of the Hail Mary project – to visit a planet seemingly resistant to this micro-organic attack. It is a one-way suicide mission, as there is not enough fuel to get back.

Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the film is adapted from the bestseller by Andy Weir, author of The Martian – famously turned into the 2015 Ridley Scott hit starring Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded on Mars.

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Ryan Gosling plays an astronaut on a mission to save Earth in this film directed by The Lego Movie’s Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Ryan Gosling plays an astronaut on a mission to save Earth in this film directed by The Lego Movie’s Phil Lord and Christopher Miller