Project Hail Mary

What’s interesting about this is that I didn’t really like it, but I enjoyed watching parts of it in IMAX and getting to talk about it with some friends afterward. To get this out of the way, the ad placements and this being made by Amazon and some film continuity errors took me out of the movie a lot. But whatever, I can get over it, and also, I really wanted to buy in so I could enjoy myself.

I will say, I did get what I wanted from media about the “other” where we don’t have such an antagonistic relationship with it. The astrophages weren’t made out to be these malicious entities (but they were completely black and opaque and the predator taumoeba is white and sparkly… hm) but a neutral life form that’s using energy in a way that’s different from what we’ve seen. Unfortunately, the anthropomorphizing of Rocky really took me out of it. It reminded me of Mickey 17 and how flat the aliens fell there too. Why do the producers of these movies want me to cry so much for these CGI creatures?

Reading the reviews on Letterbox also shocked me because the one review that called out the America in this movie got dogpiled by, I guess, illiterate “why can’t we just enjoy things?” crowd. But actually though, why is this guy, Andy Weir, addicted to one man being the sole saviour of an entire planet? With the help of, let’s see, a fucking alien, and not the minds of 100000 other scientists in the world? Because they are there simply there to replicate this theories and confirm them?

I think, once again, ultimately, I’m not going to get what I am looking for in an American movie.

I liked the brief moment when we got to see Rocky’s ship. I enjoyed the ending. I thought it was cute. Both in that the friendship between Grace and Rocky was endearing, and in a diminutive way, wow we really have to buy in that this entire story, premise, and conclusion is entirely apolitical.