We just saw Project Hail Mary today - I had read the book and really enjoyed it - stayed very faithful to the book - saw it with my wife and son and they hadn't read the book and they both enjoyed it as well - really hope that Ryan Gosling gets some serious award consideration because he was phenomenal in this movie
This is the best film of the year so far, and a thoroughly remarkable accomplishment, in delivering a complex story with two superb performances. It's that exceedingly rare example of an
actual science fiction film--meaning to me, hard science fiction that gets the foundational science right as it explores speculative ideas. It works entirely on its own merit, but as one who loved the superb novel, it also realizes the best elements of the source, and all indications are it succeeds with general audiences who would never read hard science fiction.
The crossover elements of the novel that are so great, the science, the excitement of the story as it unfolds, and the emotion and humor are all present in the film, with perhaps rightly being lighter on the science, and greater on the emotion and humor. One flaw: the thing the film does not capture well enough is the sense of the danger to Earth that creates the need for the mission. Visually, it is brilliant and continuously astonishing. Highest recommendation to see it in IMAX if you can.
Gosling and Sandra Hüller are early frontrunners for many acting awards, and the film may capture many more categories, but what I love is it will make a good profit, thus encouraging more legit science film projects to get financed amid all the routine, garbage Star Wars and comic book Hollywood product.
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