Space Cadets

 

PROJECT HAIL MARY (C+) - I tried to refrain from rolling my eyes during the first hour of this naive space opera about a bumbling American on a remote -- and presumably doomed -- mission to rescue the stars in the solar system. It is mainly a vehicle for Ryan Gosling to be silly and charming while surrounded by neat CGI tricks and master puppetry.

It takes nearly an hour -- of this 2-hour, 36-minute spectacle -- for Gosling's astronaut Ryland Grace to coincidentally run into a another spacecraft and life form (small world!) and, like a kindergarten teacher, find ways to communicate with it. (The creature resembles a spindly rock, so Grace calls it Rocky. Kute!)

 

As my partner pointed out, this earnest production seems like a film for children, or maybe adults who have given up on the idea of fending off even the slightest challenges to their intellect. The first hour is mostly set-up, with Grace plucked from his lowly gig as a middle-school science teacher to help the government(s) figure out the substance that is implanting itself between Venus and the sun (and happening to all but one of the other stars in the solar system), such that the cooling of Earth in the coming decades will render the planet mostly uninhabitable. Clever idea, but it plays out in ridiculous fashion, with Grace, in flashbacks, plopped into a remote lab to do science experiments while bureaucrats look on and their ringleader, the sarcastic Eva Stratt (Sandra Hueller), mocks him and treats the whole project like goofy game show.

None of that works well. It is a mess brought to you by filmmakers who dabble in wacky animation (Meatballs and Legos) and the Spider-man franchise (co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller), or the universe that encompasses "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Cloverfield" and "World War Z" (co-writer Drew Goddard, a Los Alamos, N.M., native), all based on a novel by Andy Weir ("The Martian"). That's quite a creative soup, but then again, too many cooks ...

Gosling is amusing enough, as he can't help but be. I guess we're supposed to laugh at all the tools and tricks he has on board his spaceship, which is light-years from civilization and on a mission designed for no possible return flight. (Though I suspected late in the first hour that Grace and Rocky might have a hack up their sleeve. We'll see.) It's not just improbably but virtually impossible that this shlubby science teacher would master all the controls of the massive spaceship and have the wherewithal -- with no training -- to blithely traipse through spacewalks. (But it's just a movie!)

We paused 45% of the way to save the rest for a second night. We agreed that we could fast forward through much of it to just get to the ending. Except we didn't deploy the remote, and I kind of half-watched a lot of the rest of it. I had no desire to sit through more of Grace and Rocky's child-play that resulted from their interstellar meet-cute. (At one point they tap out the theme from "Close Encounters" to each other. Huh?) There were a few audible sighs during the final 90 minutes.

And so, this goes on and on. The flashbacks pile up, but the dribs and drabs of backstory can be tedious. Meanwhile, Grace and Rocky develop a relationship with the depth and banter of a mid-level sitcom. Somehow they find the time to pursue a solution to the problem they were both tasked with solving. They develop a computerized method to translate each other's voices into their own language, so they can chat. Thus, Rocky talk like Tarzan. Or maybe Mork from Ork. In fact, brace yourself: Whenever the music swells and talk gets serious (about their survival), the depth of emotion rivals that of a Very Special Episode of "Mork & Mindy." 

I suppose this is just what the Hollywood doctor ordered for a populace that wants to pretend it can rise to the challenge when fate plucks one of us from obscurity to save the universe. Our Prime Video training will have served us well. 

BONUS TRACK

Would you believe the filmmakers and Paul McCartney stoop to including the Beatles' "Two of Us" on the soundtrack? Yes, things get that treacly. Much better was an opening sequence in which a Manson-bearded Grace is roused from his induced coma, and he flails around the cabin to the tune of Kris Kristofferson's hangover anthem "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down."