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Project Hail Mary

by George Wolf

The arguments about Awards Season 2026 may still be raging on social media, but Project Hail Mary arrives to start the conversation about next year. It’s the kind of lavish, well-polished, big movie star project that could generate word-of-mouth excitement, bring crowds back to the theater, and leave audiences with an inspiring message of hope and humor that is sorely needed.

And that will be awesome, truly. So, I already feel like a cynical jerk for not thinking it’s a masterpiece.

Thanks a lot, Ryan Gosling.

Actually, it’s pretty damn hard not to love Gosling’s turn here as Dr. Ryland Grace, a molecular biologist who’s teaching middle school science thanks to some of his less-than-peer-approved theories.

But when he wakes from an induced coma on a ship in outer space, “Grace” is our last hope for saving Earth from the nasty space dust that is about three decades away from destroying the Sun.

How did he get here? And how can a man “who puts the ‘not’ in “astronaut'” hope to succeed all alone?

Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller give us those answers, adapting Andy Weir’s best-selling novel with another crowd-pleasing script from Drew Goddard – who also adapted Weir’s The Martian for the screen. And much like The Martian, we’re among the stars with a solitary man who must rely on science to find the solution to survival.

But Grace isn’t really alone, once he meets a crab-like alien (voiced by James Ortiz) he calls “Rocky” thanks to an appearance that resembles a strategic stacking of stones. Rocky’s planet is also facing extinction, and the two form a bond that quickly aligns the film as a family-friendly mashup of 2001 and E.T.

Gosling’s self-deprecating charm and sharp comic timing are instantly likable, and once Rocky learns some basics of English, the alien’s penchant for inverting certain words and gestures leads to warmly funny exchanges. Lord & Miller (The Lego Movie, 21 Jump Street, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) bolster the rapport with wondrous IMAX sequences, but can’t completely overcome the feeling that this is all just a little too obvious and cute.

Flashbacks to a terrific Sandra Hüller as the impatiently blunt leader of the Hail Mary project give the film some much needed depth, and the mild twist in Act Three pulls the narrative out of the safe zone, albeit too briefly. The Martian suffered from the same calculated, broad brush feel at work here, and thankfully Lord & Miller don’t follow suit and resort to a succession of eye-rollingly precise needle drops.

The film’s title could also apply toward winning back those finicky theater-goers. And Project Hail Mary is perfectly suited to be a memorable cinematic experience with mass appeal. It looks great, there’s a charismatic leading man, his little alien buddy, and an easily digestible life lesson.

An enjoyable trip to the movies will be had. It just ain’t a trip to deep space.

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The Zone of Interest

by Hope Madden

Jonathan Glazer takes his time between features. It’s been a full decade since his magnificent sci-fi thriller Under the Skin, which itself came 9 years after another somber piece of science fiction, 2004’s Birth. That makes the four-year span since his feature debut, the darkly ingenious Sexy Beast, seem insignificant.

But there’s nothing insignificant about Glazer or his remarkable spate of compelling, surprising, thought-provoking films, capped off with his latest, The Zone of Interest.

Told primarily in long shots that dwarf the characters within the larger physical context, Glazer unveils casual evil.

It’s taken a few years, but Hedwig Höss (an astonishing Sandra Hüller) has built a little paradise in the home she and husband Rudolph (Christian Friedel) acquired when he was made commandant of Auschwitz.

Between the house and camp is a large wall. On this side of the wall, lovely, meticulously cared for gardens, a pool, a green house, a dog frolicking here and there, and five healthy blond children. Just beyond the wall but visible in nearly every exterior shot in Glazer’s chilling film, the camp’s incinerator buildings.

Though the Höss family thrives, equally oblivious and complacent concerning the boundless inhumanity that surrounds them, Glazer refuses to let the viewer miss its presence. That disconnect is the icy heart of The Zone of Interest.

By setting the story within a minor family drama – Rudolph is being transferred because of the skill with which he manages Auschwitz and Hedwig is loath to leave the home she’s so painstakingly built – Glazer says more about the insurmountable horror of the Holocaust than most. He dramatizes nothing. Seeing how easily, how thoughtlessly and even eagerly human beings can benefit from incomprehensible inhumanity provides new, highly relevant perspective.

Hüller stuns in a performance that’s never showy yet so deeply vile it’s hard to shake. She’s not alone. Glazer’s full ensemble excels.

He adorns his tale with experimental flourishes that may be intended to cause discord, to provide the audience a moment to pause and reflect on the comfort with which human beings can carry out evil. These moments – except a late film glimpse into modern day Auschwitz – rarely achieve the same impact as the narrative.

It’s a minor misstep in a film so assured and authentic.