I’ll be completely honest, I walked into the theater expecting another uninteresting space film. What I got instead was an incredibly fun time. Project Hail Mary is a science fiction, space-exploration thriller released on March 20th of this year.

Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, it stars the well-known Ryan Gosling as the protagonist, Ryland Grace. The film does an excellent job of keeping the audience engaged; there isn’t a boring moment in the entire movie. It clearly seems that the main focus of the film is character development. I felt very close to Gosling’s character; it was fascinating how well Grace’s feelings were portrayed through tears, laughter, and the awkward knowing that the character was meant to die the whole time. Despite the immense pressure put onto Grace, there is still a decent amount of laughter alongside the tense, thrilling scenes, which contributed to my liking of the film.

For me, laughter is important; if a fi lm doesn’t make me laugh at all, how can I enjoy it? Of course, a film doesn’t need to be funny, and there are surely movies I would enjoy without humor—unless the movie is so bad it’s impossible not to laugh. The fi lm, based on the bestselling novel by Andy Weir, made roughly $140 million globally in its opening weekend, which was well-deserved in my opinion. The entire plot is shocking and fascinating, as we learn more information right alongside Grace. In the opening scene, Grace wakes up from what appears to be hyper-sleep. He is disoriented and has no memory of how he ended up there. He is alone in space with no known purpose. We are brought from the present to the past throughout a good chunk of the fi lm; this is simply genius storytelling. The audience has questions, and we learn the answers as Grace recovers his memories. The movie flows perfectly while being purely beautiful. We learn that a fictional space microorganism, which is essentially killing the Earth’s sun, is the main conflict. I thought it was interesting how real they made it seem, as if “astrophage” were a real thing. The fi lm provides reasonable explanations for it all, making it feel like something that could actually exist in the galaxy. Without revealing too many spoilers, here is the basic premise of the fi lm. Ryland Grace, a middle school teacher, wakes up on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there or why his crew mates are deceased. As his memories return, he learns that he is genuinely Earth’s last hope for survival. His mission is to travel to a distant star that is surprisingly not falling victim to the astrophage to fi nd out why every other star in the galaxy is. The astrophage is devouring the sun’s heat, meaning that, in the long term, Earth will freeze. Grace also fi nds out that the trip is a one-way mission, meaning he will not return to Earth; he must sacrifice his life. The tone shifts from a sad, lonely space movie to a heartwarming and wholesome friendship fi lm when Gosling’s character meets an alien from another star system on the exact same mission. This movie handles those wholesome feelings surprisingly well; it isn’t cheesy, which is a factor that usually changes my opinion of a movie. Together, Grace and “Rocky” (the name given to the alien) work together to complete the mission. Another element that worked well is how the alien is introduced. Usually, aliens in fi lms are introduced through fear; while that happens here, it is quickly combined with “aww!” or “how cute!” moments, making it clear the fi lm was made for everyone. The alien didn’t have a scary design at all, which helped make this an amazing family movie. Essentially, Grace, a middle school teacher turned astronaut—embarks on a beautiful adventure to literally save the world. Project Hail Mary is real, genuine, and an outstanding fi lm for all ages. I truly enjoyed it and would highly recommend it. It has an easygoing feeling that makes it seem like a lot of the dialogue was improvised, which worked really well here. Interestingly, the directors were famously fi red from a weak Han Solo fi lm for encouraging too much improvisation; Project Hail Mary gives us a gist of what that movie could have been like. My only major critique, which others might agree with, is that it is overly long. Length isn’t inherently bad, but most people aren’t used to a movie of this duration, and they are bound to get restless like I did. However, besides the runtime, the movie was perfect in my eyes. The production and the heartwarming scenes all scream “a fun time.”