Even with its hard-science components, Project Hail Mary plays more like a comfy genre picture, favoring hope and heart amid its grand space mission. Andy Weir’s intricate writing takes on a more digestible, sweeter edge when adapted by directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs). Sure, there’s a saccharine sensation to how they lean into the amusing charm, and one can’t help but look at all the marvelous tech on display as a warning to play this big-budget picture safe. While I can’t deny that this picture steers towards the less turbulent waters with meticulous detail and design, I also can’t deny that what it strives for works, even when watching the movie mathematically project with heartstrings it intends to tug.

There’s a lot of faith placed in Ryan Gosling to command this behemoth of a sci-fi picture, mostly on his own. He plays the scientist Ryland Grace, tasked with a mission in deep space to save Earth. After awaking from an induced coma aboard his spacecraft, Grace loses his memory and has to recall how and why he’s in space. The non-linear storytelling slowly reveals the events leading to his voyage, ranging from his debates with his stern superior, Eva (Sandra Hüller), to his friendship with Officer Hatch (Lionel Boyce) during laboratory experiments. Although Grave wakes to an empty vessel, his life on Earth also turns out to be lonely, having no family or romantic partners to miss when heading to the stars. This makes him an ideal candidate, but also a sad one, to the point that it feels like Gosling’s passionate character from La La Land is tossed into the silent void of Blade Runner 2049, relying on his echoing charm to fuel a dangerous, isolating save-the-Earth story.

Even when Gosling does have somebody to play off of, he’s still carrying the movie, considering his friend for this adventure is a rock-like alien he dubs Rocky (James Ortiz). There’s some fun in watching Grace progressively decipher Rocky’s language and give him a computer-generated voice for translations. There’s also some intrigue to Rocky’s ship and how it functions. But the film does get a bit too comfy with making Rocky the adorable prodigy who knows a lot about space, but gets all giddy when boarding Grace’s ship for the first time. The common bond they form, ala E.T., doesn’t feel tired, however, as Gosling does his best to play off the computer-generated creature he shares his spaceship with. There’s a sweet balance between them solving the mystery of cells eating the sun and sharing parts of their culture, working hard for a fairly common human-alien buddy dynamic.

Where the film is at its strongest is, no surprises here, the visual effects. From the lack of gravity of Grace’s spaceship to the eye-popping gorgeous shots of a planet slathered in green, there’s plenty to be impressed with in a film that takes enough time to stop and smell the cosmic colors, rather than get lost in the equations of the mission. The dazzling displays are given as much allure as the script’s devotion to Andy Weir’s science-astute writing, on par with Tom Clancy’s meticulousness. There’s more than enough heart pumped into the picture to make me care more about the individuals inside the out-of-control spaceship spinning towards a planet’s atmosphere. Credit to Miller and Lord’s direction for evoking tears over the dangers faced by a creature that looks like a scrapped design from an aborted Pet Rock movie.

The non-linear storytelling is clever in favoring aspect ratios to signal transitions, but the scenes on Earth are strangely more compelling than the big space adventure. Usually, the prep for launch scenes is the weakest for the exposition required before rockets blast off, but it feels more like the opposite here. While Grace’s star-bound investigation has its own wonder, his interactions with scientists and officials have their own fascination for how well Gosling plays off his co-stars. His conversations with Sandra Hüller reveal more than the standard utilitarianism she demands of such a capable mind. Grace’s experiments for the government are rather engaging, given how he slaps them together with duct tape and gets all giddy when he makes a huge discovery. Considering how much time is spent exploring the quirks of Rocky, it would’ve been nice to spend even more time on Earth, considering there’s an entire story of humanity and intrigue before the rocket even departs the launch pad.

Even with all the science salutes and spectacular special effects, Project Hail Mary has a simpler draw for how it stews on the warmer moments of a daring expedition. It’s not exactly treading any new ground, but it does walk that path well with gorgeous visuals and a hauntingly mesmerizing soundtrack by Daniel Pemberton. Sometimes it’s nice to just hang out with an alien who isn’t seeking to dominate the galaxy or eat our flesh, but just wants to find some purpose and connection like all of us. Maybe it isn’t given as much depth as it should, but it’s still a rare and welcome dose of big-screen science fiction where the heart doesn’t push out all the brain.

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