March Movies Part 2: Project Hail Mary & Ready or Not 2: Here I Come

To finish out the month, I saw two movies I had been hotly anticipating, and they both did not disappoint. Whether you're looking for uplifting apocalyptic sci-fi or hilarious apocalyptic horror, I've got you covered.

Project Hail Mary: Adapted by Drew Goddard from the 2021 novel by Andy Weir, and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, this movie is a perfect example of how book-to-screen adaptations should be filmed. I saw it with members of my book club because we just read this novel in January, and while yes, we noticed some minor things that were missing from the book, we certainly didn't think any of it mattered. Instead, I was astonished at what a faithful adaptation this was, and how adeptly it managed to convey all the science and logic of Weir's novel with cinematic flourish and aplomb. The first five minutes of this movie manage to convey information and action that take up fifty pages of the book, and I was incredibly impressed with the filmmakers' ability to condense this novel while still capturing its essence.

Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace, a man who wakes up from a coma in unfamiliar surroundings and gradually pieces together that he is on board a spacecraft that is in a completely different solar system from Earth. He has retrograde amnesia but keeps flashing back to memories of his life back on Earth to help him piece together who he is and what his mission is supposed to be. Turns out he was a middle-school science teacher and former academic biologist. Scientists discovered the Sun was dimming, which would lead to catastrophic consequences for all of humanity. This led to a global scientific push to investigate the phenomenon and come up with a solution. They discover that a microorganism called astrophage was eating away at the Sun and growing exponentially. Grace was recruited by a woman named Eva Stratt (Sandra Huller) to help study astrophage, and eventually, Project Hail Mary was born, a long-shot mission to study a distant star in another solar system, that seems to be infected by astrophage but is somehow not dimming like the Sun. 

You'll have to watch the movie to find out how Grace ended up on the mission, and of course, the piece de resistance of this whole tale, how he runs into an alien, Rocky (voiced and puppeteered by James Ortiz and a team of four other puppeteers), who is on the exact same mission for his people to investigate this non-dimming star and maybe help save his planet from extinction. They got the character of Rocky exactly right, and the friendship that blossoms between him and Grace is just as perfect as it is in the book.

I was a huge fan of the novel, but many members of my book club were turned off by the amount of hard science it contained. As such, this movie is perfect for folks who don't want to read all of that but still want to experience this moving, profound, and absolutely rollicking story for themselves. It has so much plot, so much heart, and the cinematography and visual effects are absolutely stunning. The actors are truly excellent (who could ever get tired of watching Ryan Gosling be both earnest and funny in space?) and the movie is Hollywood at its cinematic best. Head for this mission: it's unlike anything you've ever seen before.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come: I was a huge fan of the original Ready or Not that came out in 2019, so when I heard there was a sequel, again written by Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy and directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, I knew there was no way I would miss it. The action of this film picks up exactly where we left off, and what follows is another bloody and funny horror movie, now with two plucky heroines instead of just one. What could be better?

Samara Weaving is back as Grace, a woman who married a very wealthy man, but discovered on her wedding day in the last movie that he is part of an insane family that worships the devil. She had to play a game of Hide and Seek where every family member would try to kill her before dawn, but if she survived, they would all explode in gory and spectacular fashion. So, she survived, but as this movie begins, she is in the hospital and on the verge of being arrested, because the police who showed up at the house of horrors naturally assume she is responsible for murdering all the bodies inside while she sat outside on the steps in her bloody wedding dress. Her estranged sister, Faith (Kathryn Newton) shows up at the hospital because she was still her emergency contact. Unfortunately, Grace's in-laws were not the only crazy family involved in this whole situation. They're part of a syndicate of wealthy devil-worshipping families who basically run the world. And by winning Hide and Seek, Grace has triggered a rare clause in their bylaws that means that now she and her sister will be hunted by members of all the important families in a second round of the game. If she survives till dawn, she gets to take her place among them and help to rule the world. Sweet deal, right?

It's a bonkers premise, sure, but it's executed to perfection. The cast now features folks like Elijah Wood, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nestor Carbonell, and many others, including Shawn Hatosy who is playing a rather insane character in stark contrast to his most recent role as Dr. Jack Abbot on The Pitt. And of course, our leading ladies are stellar, playing two women who have a lot of childhood trauma that they now have to somehow resolve at the same time as they are desperately trying to not get murdered. As you do. It's all very silly but very fun and if comedy horrors are your jam, this is one of the best you could experience.