E.T. Go Home: "Project Hail Mary," "Islands"

In Theaters: “Project Hail Mary” (⭐ ⭐ 1/2) – Certain movies just aren’t made for film critics, and this is one of them. It’s going to be a huge, crowd-pleasing hit, and bully for that, but I can tell when a filmmaker is slumming, and here it’s a pair of them: Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who wrote and directed the fantastically funny “The Lego Movie” (2014) and “21 Jump Street” (2014) – two brand extensions that have no business being as good as they are – and wrote the two animated “Spider-verse” movies (the only decent things to come out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in years) and 2021’s “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” (the only decent animated movie to play Netflix before “KPop Demon Hunters”). They’re clever boys and brilliant pop-culture mixmasters, their movies a sugar high of good jokes, bad jokes, in-jokes and hellacious comic timing. With “Project Hail Mary” they’ve opted to go Spielberg on us, which is to say soft. Only Spielberg gets to be soft, in part because he deeply, profoundly believes in his own sentimentality and in part because he’s Spielberg. Lord and Miller are very proficient entertainers but they’re as sentimental as a pair of real estate salesmen at a wake, and asking them to remake “Close Encounters,” only cuter, is an idea only a studio executive could love. (Lord and Miller didn't write this one, either, and it hurts.)

Anyway. Ryan Gosling is a scientist stranded in outer space, and if you’re already thinking this sounds a lot like “The Martian” (2015), ten points for you, because “Project Hail Mary” is based on the novel by Andy Weir, who wrote “The Martian” and who understands which side his toast is buttered on. (Drew Goddard wrote the screenplay adaptation.) The Earth is facing slow extinction from a cosmic interloper – I don’t want to say too much about the most interesting part of the movie – and Gosling’s Ryland Grace (sounds like an agrochemical giant, but what do I know) has been dispatched to the one corner of the universe that seems to be immune. Once he gets there (spoiler alert), he discovers that another threatened planet has had the same idea and has sent their emissary to find answers. Once we’re past some high comedy of meet-cute/meet-terrified, what we have is an interstellar buddy movie.

Not a bad idea on the face of it, but the alien Other is (spoiler alert) a sentient boulder quickly dubbed Rocky, and Ryland Grace™ quickly jury-rigs a translation machine that allows the two to crack wise to each other, and “Project Hail Mary” quickly devolves into scenes of comic banter calculated to tug the heartstrings of general audiences while hardening the arteries of those who can only see the hands doing the tugging. (Puppeteer James Ortiz provides Rocky’s movements and voice.)

Was I entertained? Yes, in a slightly shamed way. Yes, I appreciated the Easter egg references to "2001: A Space Odyssey" and other sci-fi warhorses. And, yes, I was distracted by the film’s musical soundtrack, which takes the form of a wrestling match between composer Daniel Pemberton’s score and music supervisor Keir Lehman’s eclectic needle-drops, the latter effectively Mickey Mousing entire scenes.) The only times I felt the movie wasn’t talking down to me were in the flashback scenes on Earth, where Ryland Grace® is a reluctant draftee to a global scientific program run by Eva, who’s played by Sandra Hüller. When last we saw Hüller, she had pushed her husband out a window to his death (maybe) in “Anatomy of a Fall,” and I bet the actress felt a perverse enjoyment in finding herself in a $100 million Hollywood Winnebago. In any case, Hüller’s natural astringency plays as perfect deadpan comedy amid the gigantism, and her cool rhythms mesh well with Ryland’s nervous-nellie jangle. (You can sense Gosling’s relief in these scenes: A human actor to interact with – and a good one – instead of a green-screen.) I’d like to see a movie about her.

Well, we already did, sort of: “Arrival” (2016), Denis Villeneuve’s smart, expansive sci-fi drama about an alien spaceship come to Earth and the scientist (Amy Adams) charged with communicating with its inhabitants. That movie flattered the intelligence of moviegoers by asking them to level up a bit, kids and grown-ups alike, and so did “The Martian,” which is a far better film than the new one. So, for that matter, did Lord and Miller’s earlier projects. As I said, “Project Hail Mary” will make cargo containers of money – after the traditional first-quarter doldrums, it’s the first real movie of 2026 – but it’s anything but a levelling up. If anything, it’s a dumbing down and, from these guys, a comedown. Now excuse me while I get steamrollered by the popular majority.

– love, Anton Ego

(Interestingly, the trailer below front-loads all the cool Earth scenes. Maybe they're trying to tell us something?)

On Demand: “Islands” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐, renting for $6.99 on Apple TV, Fandango at Home and Prime Video) – This was a surprise: A sun-drenched, slow-burning Euro-thriller that