Space Buddies: A Review of Project Hail Mary

 directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller 

written by Drew Goddard

based on the book by Andy Weir

As one of the more hyped-up movies of 2026, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's Project Hail Mary had a lot to live up to, as an adaptation of another book by Andy Weir, who penned the book The Martian, which inspired the highly successful Ridley Scott film starring Matt Damon over a decade ago.  The good news for me is that this film pretty much lived up to the hype.

The film opens with a disheveled man (Ryan Gosling) waking up in deep space to discover that he is the sole survivor of a manned space mission with no memory of who is or how he got there. As he slowly wakes up he remembers that he is Dr. Ryland Grace is a mild-mannered, middle-school science teacher who, after one of his classes, was approached by government agent Eva Stratton (Sandra Huller), with a mission to save the sun from a mysterious phenomenon that seems to be consuming it.  This is happening through the Petrova line, a mysterious trail of organisms stretching the sun to the planet Venus, filled with some kind of creatures that eat suns. Ultimately, the solution that Earth's best and brightest have come up with is to have astronauts travel to a distant star, 11 light years away from Earth, which also has a Petrova line but is not dimming, as the sun is.   As Grace remembers more and more of how he ended up here, so far away from hoe, he is startled by the discover that someone else, in another ship from another planet has traveled to exactly the same place. He will soon discover that they are there for the same reason, and that they need to cooperate if their worlds are to have any chance of survival. Fortunately, Grace and his new colleague, whom he names "Rocky" after his stone-like appearance, hit it off pretty quickly, but they'll need more than just good vibes to save the day: they'll need ingenuity, courage, and the willingness to basically lay it all on the line. 

I loved The Martian back when I watched it in 2015, so when the trailer for this film dropped, even though I had yet to read the 2021 book on which Project Hail Mary was based, it was an easy call to go check it out at the nearest movie theater.   

Like The Martian, which was also adapted by screenwriter Drew Goddard, this movie features an affable, relatable lead character in Ryland Grace, who is very much out of his element as a science teacher who has been sent on a deep space mission for reasons that we, the audience, only discover quite late in the film. He's an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances, and his journey is utterly compelling. Ryan Gosling does a brilliant job of playing Grace as an everyman, even though he actually holds a doctorate in molecular biology, the fact that he is terrified of the challenges that lie ahead makes him far more relatable than the character would be had he been infused with confidence in the face of what feels like an insurmountable task.  He basically carries the film on his shoulders, as his co-star Rocky is part puppet, part digital effect and part voice actor (James Ortiz). It helps, though, that his earthbound co-star Sandra Huller plays an effective "straight" man to Grace's wisecracking schoolteacher. Lord and Miller do an outstanding job of exploiting the chemistry between their actors, which is not the easiest thing to do in film like this, with such limited human interaction. 

Visually, the movie is a treat, with art direction and visual effects which still manage to give the film its own distinct aesthetic at a time when science fiction movies set in space like Dune and the Star Wars film have already thrown down the gauntlet in terms of how space should look on the big screen. 

For me, though, the technical standout of this film was Daniel Pemberton's soaring musical score. Even though it admittedly felt slightly heavy-handed at times, it was wonderfully evocative and, like the film's unique visual design (best exemplified by Rocky's ship), it really made sure the movie was its own thing, and not just some redux of the astronaut-in-peril trope that we've seen fairly often over the last decade or so (e.g. Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian, to name a few).   The movie's strongest selling point, for me at least, is its humanity, which is embodied in the bond between Grace and Rocky. Kudos therefore go out not just to Gosling but to the team of puppeteers, effects artists and the voice actor who gave him something palpable to play off, even when he was probably just talking to a tennis ball.

It's not often I say this about a science fiction movie, but it's something that the whole family can enjoy. There's no swearing, sex or extreme violence, and thematically, it's actually got the kind of values that parents would want their young children to imbibe like selflessness. So in short, to the Gen-Xers and millennials worried about where to leave their kids, rest assured, you can take them to see this with you.  

 When I rewatched The Martian on DVD years  after I had enjoyed it in theaters, I was pleased to see how well it had aged.  I am pretty sure I'll be able to say the same thing about this movie. 

10/10  

Animals on the Court: A Review of Goat

 directed by Tyree Dillihay

written by Aaron Buchsbaum, Teddy Riley, Nicolas Curcio and Peter Chiarelli

Since Sony Pictures Animation basically rewrote the animation rulebook with 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, they've just gone from strength to strength with one outstanding film after another, with last year's KPop Demon Hunters adding to their Oscar trophy cabinet with not just one but two Oscars, including their first-ever Best Original Song Oscar. Their offbeat story choices and their now signature animation style have pretty much cemented their position as one of the animation industry's major players.

As a result, I guess it's inevitable that they'd eventually come up with a movie that was basically just "OK."

The film Goat, the title of which is basically a play on the sports acronym GOAT or "Greatest Of All Time" centers around an anthropomorphic young goat named Will Harris (Caleb McLaughlin), who lives in a Zootopia-like world populated by anthopormorphic animals, and who aspires to play roarball, his world's equivalent of basketball, albeit a much more extreme version. His big dream is to play for the Vineland Thorns like his hero, Jett Filmore (Gabrielle Union). He's a talented shooter, but as a "small" animal, he'll never be accepted in a league where only the "big" thrive.   This changes, however, when a video where he plays streetball and scores against one of roarball's most respected players, Mane Event (Aaron Pierre) goes viral, and Thorns team owner Flo (Jenifer Lewis), sees an opportunity to spruce up the Thorns, that have yet to win a championship (called a "Claw" here) basically because Jett is a complete ballhog.  Flo recruits will as a sixth player, and he joins Jett and her teammates, the giraffe Lenny (Steph Curry, yes THAT Steph Curry), rhinoceros Archie (David Harbour), ostrich Olivia (Nicola Coughlan), and komodo dragon Modo (Nick Kroll). It's an uphill battle for Will, who is constantly bullied by Jett and who can't even count on the proboscis monkey coach Dennis (Patton Oswalt), so he basically has to make his own breaks. Through his sheer grit and plucky spirit, however, Will may yet show the Thorns the value of teamwork, and take them into uncharted territory.

As that little blurb suggests, the film is basically loaded with sports underdog movie cliches, and is completely okay with that. So am I, to be frank, especially since they bring their patented visual flair to the game, and some pretty enjoyable voice acting. The animal world this crowd of animals moves in is no Zootopia clone; it's rough and tumble and pretty "extreme" in it s orientation, even more so when the various animals are facing off in the roarball court.  The whole thing really is a treat, especially when watching it with one's kids. 

Maybe down the line I could see myself calling Sony Animation out for making movies like this, but for now, this is just fine. 

 

8/10

Yet Another Missed Opportunity: A (VERY LATE) Review of Wake Up, Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

 written and directed by Rian Johnson

As someone who considers himself a fan of Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" movies, I'm a little sheepish to admit that I didn't catch this latest one, Wake, Up, Dead Man, until several months after its release on Netflix, and I'm even more embarrassed to admit that I haven't gotten around to reviewing it until just now. I'll explain why later, but I am glad I eventually caught the latest mystery adventure of Benoit Blanc, played once more with aplomb by Daniel Craig.

Writer-director Rian Johnson takes us to Church for this film, which actually focuses on a different character this time: Catholic priest Fr. Jud Duplenticy, played by an excellent Josh O'Connor.  Fr. Jud's a bit of a hothead, having been a former boxer before joining the priesthood, and his temper still manages to flare up as he punches a deacon and lands in a backwater with a dwindling congregation and a very cantankerous old priest, Father Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin).  Fr. Wicks preaches to a tiny handful of parishioners who include his secretary Martha (Glenn Close), a doctor Nat (Jeremy Renner), washed-up author Lee (Andrew Scott), cutthroat lawyer Vera (Kerry Washington), ailing musician Simone (Cailee Spaenee) and aspiring influencer Cy (Daryl McCormack).  Sparks fly almost instantly when Fr. Jud sets foot in the new parish, with Fr. Wicks determined to provoke him into even more violence with his incendiary words and even physical abuse. When Fr. Wicks mysteriously dies during a mass, as a result, Fr. Jud is an instant suspect, and Benoit Blanc is once again on the case, much to the chagrin of the local sheriff (Mila Kunis).  As always, though, the situation is far more complicated than it appears, and the real killer could have been anyone from among Fr. Wick's remaining parishioners.

More than either of the previous two movies, Wake Up, Dead Man is very much a whodunit, rather than Johnson's social commentary disguised as one, and while Johnson's swipe at religion, as embodied by the very worldly, very corrupt Fr. Wick, was very much expected, the fact that he centers the narrative around the idealistic Fr. Jud and (no spoilers, I promise), makes his crisis of faith a central tenet of how the film's conflicts are resolved is something I would not have expected form a modern Hollywood film.  Benoit Blanc is a supporting character in his own film; this is all about how Fr. Jud navigates the extremely trying time he faces in the film as a murder suspect, and Josh O'Connor truly rises to the occasion with a performance that is just superb in its nuance.

I said earlier that I almost passed this movie up, and it's simply because I am annoyed that it wasn't available on the big screen. These Knives Out movies may not be action extravaganzas, but this is, for me at least the kind of meat-and-potatoes storytelling that deserves a good, long run in movie theaters. Decisions like Netflix's call to keep this almost exclusively to their streaming service with a token theatrical release make me so very glad that Netflix didn't end up buying Warner Brothers. 

9.5/10

Two More? Really? A Review of Avatar: Fire and Ash

 directed by James Cameron

written by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno

This movie made me sad.

James Cameron's new sequel Avatar: Fire and Ash brings viewers back to the world of Pandora, which humans of Earth's Resources  Development Administration  are still trying to colonize, with the native Na'vi race still trying to resist them, with ex-marine-turned-Na'vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) leading the resistance. Leading the attack on the Na'vi's is the cloned Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), whose memories have been uploaded into a Na'vi hybrid as well.  Jake, his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and their family are in grieving following the events of the second film (The Way of Water) in which their son was killed, but things are about to get even more complicated for them. They realize that their adopted son Spider (Jack Champion) cannot live in the Na'vi water tribe in which they have settled because he needs a steady supply of oxygen to be able to breathe, but as they are making the trip back to colony of human settlers they can trust, they are attacked by a new tribe of Na'vi, the Mangkwan, led by the fierce Varang (Oona Chaplin).  Between this new menace and the determination of the RDA to plunder Pandora's resources and wipe out all resistance, Jake and his allies find their backs to the wall once again, unless they can get much needed help from Eywa, the planet's deity.

At first, I was encouraged by the fact that this sequel picked up where the last film left off, with the protagonists still reeling from the events of that film. I thought this meant that we would get a lot of new developments moving forward, and to be fair, we did get some pretty cool additional world-building, like the Wind Trader clan led by David Thewlis' Peylak, as well as the aforementioned Mangkwan tribe. Varang, thanks especially to Oona Chaplin's feral performance, is a promising bad guy at first, who looked like she could add some very interesting new dimensions to the thus-far limited storytelling.

But then, it all went downhill pretty quickly around the end of the middle of the second act, and by the third act, the film has decended into tropes that were not only familiar, but are ripped right out of the first Avatar movie, right down to the late James Horner's music score.  This was not only disappointing, but it was downright tedious, and because I had already been disappointed by The Way of Water, I didn't bother to shell out the premium for the IMAX experience.  I know this meant I didn't get the full sensory experience that the film had to offer, but with a script this limp, not even a feature length 3-D 60fps could have saved this viewing experience for me. Yeah, I know, beautiful visuals, blah blah blah...but adulting is hard, and movies are expensive, so when I shell out money for these movies, I want more than just eye candy. 

The sad part for me was that there was actually potential for things to get interesting, especially with the introduction of Varang. She's a bit of a first for Cameron; the big bad girl. The closest thing we got to a major female antagonist f rom Cameron was Tia Carrere's femme fatale in True Lies, but Varang had the potential to be so much more.  She certainly was a step up from Edie Falco's grossly underdeveloped RDA antagonist, whose fate was almost as laughable as her dialogue was cliche.

The worst part for me was how much of the narrative was anchored around Jack Champion's Spider, who is, hands-down, the worst actor in the whole franchise. His dialogue was rancid enough, despite having been written by three writers, including Cameron himself, but Champion simply cannot act to save his life. This was the kid whom Ant-Man spoke to in Avengers: Endgame, after he emerged from the Quantum Realm, and it's worth pointing out that in those few seconds of screentime Champion managed to act better than he has in two whole Avatar films.   

This film honestly feels like a wasted opportunity; this series--including this film--has had some incredible world-building moments, but for as long as Cameron and his co-writers continue to anchor the narrative on such emphatically uninteresting characters as Jake Sully and now Spider, they won't really amount to anything.

I honestly wonder if Cameron even has any narrative juice left to sustain this franchise over another two movies like he has said he plans to, because if this film is any indication, he doesn't.  

5/10

If It Ain't Broke: A Review of Zootopia 2

directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard

written by Jared Bush

One of my very favorite movies of 2016 was Walt Disney Animation Studios' original film Zootopia. Set in a fictional world populated entirely by anthropomorphic animals, the film told the story of rookie police offier Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), a rabbit and her reluctant partner, small-time con Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), a fox, and how they solved a conspiracy aimed at basically destroying Zootopia.  The film was a smash hit, grossing over a billion dollars worldwide and taking home numerous awards, including the Academy Award for best animated feature film.  A sequel should have been a sure thing, going by Hollywood logic. Bizarrely, it took them nine whole years to make this sequel. 

Whatever the reason for the delay, it seems that the filmmakers took their time to ensure that they could give viewers the best possible experience, and what better way to do that than by...basically making the first film again?

That may sound a touch uncharitable, but as odd as this may sound, I consider it a good thing. Honestly, the film is so similar in its beats to its groundbreaking predecessor that it wouldn't be fair not to point it out. The winks and nods to the first film actually feel like a "welcome back" to the people who loved the first film and are back for more, kind of like what Pixar did with Inside Out 2. It's like coming home after a long time away, or tucking into some really good comfort food. 

Story-wise, even though it's been nine years for us, only a week has passed since Judy and Nick solved the case of the missing mammals and stopped the insidious efforts to foment conflict between the "predator" and "prey" mammals.  Judy and Nick, raring to get back into action, end up botching a sting operation against smugglers, and wreaking a fair bit of property damage all over the city, including the destruction of the statue of Ebenezer Lynxley (a lynx--duh), the mammal credited as having invented the weather walls that make Zootopia habitable to such a wide variety of mammals.  This prompts Chief Bogo (Idris Elba) to put Judy and Nick in "partners' therapy" sessions. However, having recovered a fragment of reptile skin at the site of the smuggling, Judy suspects that something might be afoot at the upcoming "Zootennial" event set to mark 100 years since Zootopia's founding, considering that there haven't been any reptiles since before the founding of Zootopia, when reptiles were basically banished from the mammal community after one of them supposedly murdered a tortoise in an attempt to kill Ebenezer Lynxley.  Judy and Nick show up at the Zootenial gala in disguise where Lynxley's prize journal containing his notes on the weather wall is on display, only for things to go completely bonkers when a snake (Ke Huy Quan) shows up to steal it.  In a flash of chaotic events, Judy and Nick find themselves on the run, in the crosshairs of the the very police force they were sworn to serve, and of the Lynxley clan, headed by Milton (David Strathairn) and including his children Cattrick (Macauley Culkin), Kitty (Brenda Song) and black sheep Pawbert (Andy Samberg).  

Looking at the evidence, Judy has trouble reconciling what she knows of Zootopia's history with what he has just discovered, but she may get a helping hand from, of all people, conspiracy theorist Nibbles Maplestick (Fortune Feimster) a beaver, and her...unusual friends. 

With the odds against them, can Judy and Nick crack the case once more?

 Like the first film, Zootopia 2 has its fair share of twists and turns. It is, after all, a cop movie, complete with a mystery that needs unraveling.  Writing a synopsis without giving anything away is a bit of a challenge and even involves hiding at least one pretty fun celebrity. The good news is that if Disney's main goal was to give viewers a good time, it's pretty much mission accomplished because between the pixel-perfect animation, the riotous humor, the fast-paced action and the generous helpings of fan service, the movie is basically a delightful confection.  Of course, like the first film, it has something to say about things happening in the real world, but unlike the first film, this one has villains who have some very clear parallels in real life.  To be honest, the allegory feels just a little ham-handed this time around.  That said, I really like how the filmmakers added to the already impressive world-building that they had done in the first film while leaving room for plenty more.

Goodwin and Wilde maintain their characters' chemistry from the first film, making me wonder if they had recorded their lines together.  Some welcome additions to the voice cast include Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan and comedienne Fortune Feimster, and Andy Samberg, but of course it's the leads that truly carry the film to its exciting conclusion.  

In the nine years between the first Zootopia and this sequel, I had really started to worry that Disney Animation (and their sibling Pixar) had lost their way considering the films that had come out in that period of time, ranging from strikingly mediocre to downright awful. It therefore comes as a huge relief to me that they are still fully capable of replicating some of their best work, even if it does feel quite a bit familiar.   

9/10

From Slasher to Swashbuckler: A Review of "Predator: Badlands"

 directed by Dan Trachtenberg

written by Patrick Aison and Trachtenberg

I find it mildly amusing that some people look back on the 1987 action/horror film Predator as if it were some kind of high watermark of action cinema.  Personally, I considered it a poor man's Alien,  and the studio's attempts to cash in on the popularity of two things that were huge at the time: a) killer aliens and b) Arnold Schwarzenegger. John McTiernan's testosterone-fueled action-slasher film hybrid was pretty decently-paced but it ultimately was kind of silly.  I do still get a kick out of reciting some of Ah-nuld's lines from the movie, though, like "Come aahh, kill meeh" or the immortal "GET TO DA CHOPPAH!" Beyond that, though I really don't care much for the original movie.

This is why it was no big deal to me that, having failed to recapture that 80s magic with the disastrous 2018 film The Predator, and having experienced some success with director Dan Trachtenberg's TV-only release Prey, which pitted a predator against Native Americans from the 18th-century, the makers of Predator decided to take the franchise in a decidedly different direction, one in which the Predator was actually the hero.

Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is a Yautja (the Predators' race) with ambitions of proving himself a hunter worthy of his clan, and as the film starts he is sparring with his brother Kwei (Mike Homik). Dek declares that he intends to hunt the biggest, fiercest creature known to the Yautja as part of his rite of passage to be declared one of them, and picks the nastiest one known: the Kalisk.  However, Dek's father (Reuben de Jong) is convinced that, as a runt, Dek is better off dead and orders his brother to kill him. However, fraternal love prevails over filial piety and soon Dek is off to the planet of the Kalisk, where he crash lands with a singular mission: to hunt down the Kalisk and bring its head home as a trophy, so he can take his place among the Yautja. It's a daunting task ahead, but Dek discovers that he may have  some help in the form of half a Weyland-Yutani android named Thia  (Elle Fanning), who knows quite a lot of about the fauna of the planet, especially the Kalisk, and offers to help Dek in his hunt. What she doesn't tell him, though, is the reason she was on the planet in the first place, which was how she got her legs severed from the rest of her.  Will Dek be able to fulfill his  quest to secure a trophy and take his place among the Yautja, or will the Weyland-Yutani corporation, with their army of synths, including the calculating Tessa (also Fanning) get in his way?  

 I was very pleasantly surprised by how much fun this movie was, and I enjoyed the action, the gorgeous (probably CGI enhanced) New Zealand setting, and even the humorous dynamic between Thia and Dek, who are joined in their mission by a curious creature whom Thia dubs "Bud."  It's not what I'd call the most memorable action movie of the year, but it does give the Predator franchise some new life, though I do admit I still preferred the 2010 sequel Predators starring Adrien Brody and Topher Grace. 

 Anyone looking for a serviceable, reasonably entertaining action movie should be pretty satisfied with this, though I think it's safe to say the hardcore Predator fans aren't likely to be won over by the franchise's new direction, which, if the grosses allow, will no doubt continue into the next film. 

8/10 

Faithfully Troubling: A Review of Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein"

 written and directed by Guillermo del Toro

based  on the novel by Mary Shelley

I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in college, many years ago, and I was instantly struck by how different the book was from what the movies and television shows from which I knew the story had presented. For one thing, Frankenstein's creation, more popularly known as the "monster," was a surprisingly articulate fellow, in stark contrast to the lumbering, monosyllabic creature featured in those movies.  Also, he is far  more of a tortured soul. Since then, I have seen two movies which hewed quite closely to Mary Shelley's original vision: Kenneth Branagh's 1994 adaptation, in which he starred as the scientist obsessed with conquering death and Robert De Niro starred as the creature, and now, Guillermo del Toro's adaptation available on Netflix, starring Oscar Isaac as the title character and Jacob Elordi as his hulking, tortured creation. 

The basic story beats are still very much the same: a ship bound for the North Pole encounters a mysterious threat and then finds a man nearly frozen to death, who then proceeds to tell his tale. 

Young Victor Frankenstein (Christian Convery) grew up with a loving mother (Mia Goth) whom he lost when she gave birth to his baby brother, William, and a stern father (Charles Dance) whom he lost to old age. His experience with his mother's death has formed an obsession within Victor to conquer it once and for all, and when as an adult (Isaac) he is expelled from medical school for demonstrating his ideas on conquering death, he then catches the attention of Heinrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz) a wealthy arms merchant who offers to finance his experiment. Harlander is the uncle of Elizabeth (also Mia Goth) who is engaged to the now-successful finance whiz William (Felix Kammerer).  Harlander's deep pockets ensure that Victor has the equipment and the place he needs for his experiments, and his knowledge of when battles will take place provides Victor with a fresh supply of dead bodies from which to stitch together his creation (Elordi). Victor succeeds in his grim quest to reanimate the creature using a combination of lightning and the lymphatic system, but in fairly short order, things go horribly wrong as he learns the real reason for Harlander's interest in his experiment. Victor then finds himself confronted with the reality of what he has created, and with his own petty jealously as his brother's fiancee, with whom he has developed an unhealthy obsession, seems more enamored with the creature than she ever would be with him, and he attempts to destroy the creature by burning his entire laboratory down with the creature still inside.  The creature lives, however, wanders the countryside and settles in a cottage beside a family, where he learns to read, and to appreciate people, until things again go horribly wrong, and he finds himself hunting down his creator once more to exact a final reckoning.

As faithful as this movie was to the book, I noted several liberties taken, such as number of prominent characters removed from the book that even featured in Kenneth Branagh's 1994 film, but more prominently, I noted that Victor Frankenstein was no longer an even remotely sympathetic character and his creature was depicted as almost completely blameless, which somehow felt right.  The book and the Branagh adaptation had Frankenstein's creature doing fairly monstrous things, like outright murdering people which made Frankenstein's own rage feel righteous somehow, even though he was very much to blame for what happened.  The Frankenstein of the books and Branagh's film was misguided but one could feel he had good intentions at heart. Del Toro's and Isaac's Frankenstein oozes of narcissism and vanity, and basically every truly horrible thing that happens in the film is as a result of Victor's own reckless disregard for others.  Unfortunately, this little tweak makes the narrative denouement a little harder to accept, though I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the film.

In terms of production value, this film is a lush, extravagant throwback to the days of huge, imposing physical sets, and it was gratifying to see Netflix give Del Toro the money he needed to make this movie in all its gothic glory.  Due praise should also be given to the heart-wrenching performances, from Isaac's magnificent mad scientist to Elordi's soulful, forlorn and misshapen creature. 

It's a movie I could have liked a whole lot more if the ending had been written but a little differently, but it's still something I can recommend. 

7/10