Uncle Orson Reviews Everything - 2026

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A few years ago, I reviewed the movie Arrival and declared it the best science fiction movie ever. I may not have said it, but I felt as if science fiction movies were done. No more were needed.

More fool I. I hadn't counted on Andy Weir. After reading The Martian, I felt as if science fiction was in good hands. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, when everybody in sci-fi was getting kind of arty and weird, there was one writer, Larry Niven, who was not just maintaining idea-oriented science fiction, but advancing it beyond what had gone before.

Now, in the era of sci-fi that often tries to be both literary and woke, here's Andy Weir, advancing us once again. I actually avoided reading Project Hail Mary because The Martian was so good that I was afraid Weir's next book would be some older project that now was coming out to ride the coattails of the monster success of The Martian.

(Also, I confess to resenting Weir just a little because when they made his book into a movie, the writer-director didnt hate him and the movie didn't suck.)

But today -- 26 March 2026 -- my wife and I actually got into her little baby-blue Fiat and drove to a movie theater and watched Project Hail Mary. We're both fans of Ryan Gosling (Crazy, Stupid, Love), and friends had vouched for the movie, so we expected to enjoy it.

We were not prepared for how good this movie is. Dr. Grace (Gosling) is teaching middle-school science because his scientific proposal that life doesn't necessarily require water was so ridiculed and rejected that he couldn't get hired anywhere with his Ph.D. But he loves teaching kids, and he does it well.

Then he gets whisked off to take part in a super-secret project to try to deal with the fact that the Sun is getting eaten by something on Venus that is eventually going to consume it completely. Grace is able to identify the thing (well, actually, trillions of things) that is consuming the Sun -- a micro-organism he dubs "astrophage." Star-eater.

There's an international project called "Hail Mary" that will send three people to Tau Ceti because, of all the "nearby" stars, Tau Ceti is the only one that's infected but is not losing light. It's not being consumed. So whatever is keeping Tau Ceti alive, we need to find out how to apply the same solution to our own Sun so all life isn't wiped out in a century or so.

Grace wakes up as the starship reaches the vicinity of Tau Ceti, only to find that the other two human passengers are dead. He has had no training in how to control and live on the starship. In fact, his memories are patchy at best, with some serious gaps. How is he supposed to find out what's saving this star?

I don't want to spoil anything, because this movie is so new that many people have not seen it yet, and watching the story unfold is a powerful experience that a reviewer has no business subverting. So let me just say that Grace's starship isn't the only one that has been sent to find out why Tau Ceti isn't getting eaten, and he doesn't have to deal with things alone.

Early in the movie, when it's clear that the voyage to Tau Ceti is one-way, so that the people on the ship are never going to come home, Grace laments that while other voyagers have somebody in their life that is worth dying for, he doesn't. He's completely alone. So this movie isn't about just saving our Solar System, it's also about giving Grace something to live for, and die for.

And the movie delivers. Just when you think it's over, it isn't. And then again, it isn't. And it isn't again, because this story keeps demanding that Grace make terrible choices in order to save worlds that will otherwise die. His alien collaborator, whom he dubs "Rocky," played (voiced?) by James Ortiz, earns our love and loyalty as well as Grace's.

The trouble is that to save Earth, Grace and Rocky both have to send or take back not only the data they have collected, but an actual alien micro-organism. Now, we've already been told that Tau Ceti is more than eleven lightyears from Earth, but the solutions they've found are going to arrive way sooner than that. So even though Grace is kept in a coma for the voyage there, the ship is apparently able to surpass lightspeed.

But the science is completely black-boxed -- this is how it works, so just watch the movie, folks. Even though we're given the feeling that the science is, well, scientific, it doesn't really address the scientific hurdles the story bypasses. And I'll tell you, speaking as a sci-fi writer myself, these scientific fudge factors are all correct decisions.

It's like master sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov's robots. They're operated using a "positronic brain," and not for a second did Asimov ever try to explain what a positronic brain might be or how it works. It just does. Shut up and enjoy the story.

Here's what it's like to watch this movie: I cried. More than once. Ryan Gosling cries -- and does it powerfully. He's a terrific actor, but this is drama at a level he's never done on screen before, and he aces it. Sci-fi movies performances generally don't even get considered for awards, but Best Actor Oscars and Golden Globes have been awarded for performances that don't approach the level of Gosling's work in this film. But he won't get nominated. (Andy Serkis was passed over three times for Gollum and three times for Caesar in the Apes trilogy; we're used to it.)

Project Hail Mary is worth leaving your house for in order to watch it in a real theater. I appreciate that we now watch theatrical movies while sitting in recliners and getting pedicures and massages, but you could watch this one sitting on a milking stool and you'd still be enthralled. It's that good.

Arrival had the best aliens, and the best alien language, in the history of science fiction. But Arrival's aliens were never individuated. They didn't become people to us. Project Hail Mary achieves it beautifully and completely -- more and better than E.T. did. Trust me on this.

You may not arrive at the theater in a baby-blue Fiat. But you'll leave the theater after the movie, fulfilled in ways that Guardians of the Galaxy or the various Star Wars movies never even tried for. There are about a half-dozen moments of surprise and revelation that you won't readily forget. (Which is about six more than most movies manage to deliver.)

And you'll want to go back and see it again, immersed in the fullscreen experience. Go ahead and do that, please. Monster hits are made by repeat viewers, and this movie deserves it. A lot of money went into this movie's budget; I hope everybody makes ten times that money back again. Because I want more.

No, not sequels. More movies of real quality and emotional impact. A sequel to this movie would be absurd -- it ends and not another moment is needed.

Do you get the idea that I love this movie? Does this qualify as a rave review? Then my work here is done. Go buy your ticket and watch Project Hail Mary.