I wanted desperately to like “Project Hail Mary.” I really did — it had such potential. I should back up, though. 

“Project Hail Mary” follows witty grade-school science teacher Ryland Grace (played by Ryan Gosling) waking up on a spaceship in another galaxy without his memories. Quickly, he figures out that he’s on a mission to save Earth from a space-borne pathogen that’s dimming the sun. His circumstances become more complicated when he meets an alien, whom he calls Rocky, trying to save his own infected home world. Interspersed throughout the movie are flashes of Grace’s conveniently chronologically-ordered returning memory, which tell the story of how he got onto that d*mn spaceship in the

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first place.

I suppose I should start with the good bits. If you removed all the dialogue, I imagine “Project Hail Mary” would be fantastic — the visuals throughout are excellent, and a few standout sequences are breathtaking. Notably, this film makes heavy use of practical effects, opting for built-out spaceship sets and puppeteering for the alien, and it really comes through; it does a great deal to make the film feel more “real” (i.e. he’s flicking switches, not gesturing vaguely at a screen). The digitally-composited work is stellar as well; it’s stylized, which gives the film its unique and refreshing artistic vision. The cinematography is solid. It’s unobtrusive when it needs to be, with a couple of daring shots sprinkled in (when we cut from the spinning spaceship back to Earth, the camera keeps spinning for a few seconds. Clever!). One gripe — the shaky-cam wide shots of space. Who’s shaking out there?

Unfortunately, “Project Hail Mary” falls seriously flat beyond the visuals, and a lot of its issues stem from a deep misunderstanding of the source material. This movie is the second adaptation of an Andy Weir novel to hit the silver screen, the first being a 2015 adaptation of “The Martian.”  Both of these books are deeply invested in the accuracy and detail of the science in their fictitious situations. You don’t really read these books for the characters and dialogue; you read them to find out the soil composition required to grow potatoes on Mars. Andy Weir is — and I say this with love — a total nerd, and his passion for scientific detail is infectious. Frankly, I don’t really care how a hypothetical space microbe could power a rocket ship. Weir’s talent is making you care, and it’s all genuinely fascinating. Adapting a novel like this is tricky, but “The Martian” handled it gracefully. Watching “The Martian’s” likeable and witty protagonist climb hand over fist out of his predicament through science is deeply satisfying. “Project Hail Mary” seems to have forgotten all of this — it’s the sort of movie you’d make if you watched “The Martian” and thought the only reason it worked was Matt Damon’s quips. 

“Project Hail Mary” undersells the hard sci-fi roots of the novel — it emphasizes “fi” and neglects the “sci.” Sure, I understand leaving out what minerals Rocky’s blood is made of or any number of minutiae the book lovingly thinks through, as they would bog the film down. But sometimes the movie skips the science that actively informs decisions made by characters. If I hadn’t already read the book, I imagine I’d be asking, “Why’d he do that?” many times throughout the movie. As opposed to “The Martian,” where every decision is explained scientifically to the viewer, the events in “Project Hail Mary” feel more like they happen as the result of magic. 

Beyond the lacking scientific adaptation, though, “Project Hail Mary” bungles the tone.Sure, the “Project Hail Mary” book has its share of silliness and quips. But it also knows damn well when to shut up. Aspects of Ryland Grace and Rocky’s situation are cosmically horrifying, but the movie gives these creeping fears no room to breathe, which seriously undermines the stakes of the film’s central conflict. The human-alien buddy comedy shtick even bleeds into core emotional moments in Grace’s arc, again lessening their impact. It’s not like the movie has the kind of stellar performances that could save it, and I’m sad to say we have to talk about Ryan Gosling. 

There, I said it. This movie is 15 minutes short of three hours (another issue), and he’s in every single scene. Gosling is at his best when he has another person to play off in the room, like the part early on where he gets to act out a different buddy comedy dynamic with government agent Officer Carl (Lionel Boyce). However, when he’s alone or even with an alien, Ryan Gosling just isn’t up to the task of completely carrying this movie. His performance and the writing combine to make a generally irritating character. By the end of the movie, I was honestly rather sick of Ryland Grace. He acts more buffoonish than smart, which makes the science feel more like blind luck than the calculated risks he takes in the book. Somehow, though, he’s not the most grating thing on the spaceship. That award goes to Rocky.

Dear God, they Jar Jar Binks’ed him. Gone is the endearing, hyperintelligent, cautious alien from the book, instead replaced by a hideous husk that does little more than spit out GIF-able line after GIF-able line (seriously, some of his dialogue is groan worthy). By about the midpoint of the movie, I cared so little for the man and alien duo that I longed for the flashback scenes on Earth.

There is light in the darkness on Earth though; most of the side characters surrounding Ryland Grace are legitimately fun. Sandra Hüller (“Anatomy of a Fall”) plays Eva Stratt, the no-nonsense woman in charge of the titular “Project Hail Mary,” and her exchanges with Grace are among the best in the movie. Beyond Stratt, though, the side characters each have what feels like three lines apiece, which is a far cry from the admittedly not complex but strongly characterized figures of the book. And, because we meet these characters through Grace’s flashbacks, we just never learn who they are outside of their relationship with him. 

I don’t want to make it seem as if this movie is unenjoyable. It’s not. I personally didn’t care for it, but I’m sure there’s people out there who will find Rocky endearing or are just so excited about space they forget about the rest of this movie. Who knows, you may end up really enjoying this film. I hope you do. If nothing else, I can give a wholehearted recommendation of the novel.