Project Fail Mary is an entertaining, relatively faithful adaptation of the popular Andy Weir science fiction novel, even if it shoots a few leagues under Amaze! Amaze! Amaze!
As someone who liked the book but didn’t love it, I can confidently say I liked the movie but didn’t love it. Director Phil Lord and Christopher Miller largely nail the tone of the book–fun, geeky, and funny, reliant on a sole human character to narrate his own story while trying to save the world light years away from Earth. Ryan Gosling is perfectly cast as Dr. Ryland Grace, who carries the film on his shoulders. Witty and dorky and, as my girlfriend would say, “looking pretty hot,” (correction: she did say as much during the movie), Gosling charms his way through the production, talking profusely in a way that only someone who is looking pretty hot can pull off.
Project Fail Mary is funny, even if the movie, like the book, is not a straight-up comedy. It is, after all, about saving the Earth, and there are plenty of science experiments and challenges to get through in which comedy plays no real part. But the movie is funny, and arguably works best when not taking itself too seriously.
Where Project Fail Mary strains is in its more suspenseful moments, which feel fewer and farther between than they should. The planet-scooping sequence gets the heart pumping a little bit, but doesn’t capture the intensity of the book. Lord and Miller are faithful to the book’s plot, but in doing so certain scenes–notably the more thrilling ones–feel rushed or at least not as dangerous as they felt when reading the pages.
What’s interesting is that in the book I felt that Weir sometimes got too caught up in the science of everything–after a while, observing Grace work through another science project to save his ass became slightly tedious–whereas in the movie, Lord and Miller insert too little science into the whole affair. Translating real-time scientific problem solving into a movie isn’t easy and it’s understandable why some of it was cut, but the action in Project Fail Mary loses some of its oxygen in the process. Again, the planet-scooping scene could have been high-octane material, but without watching Grace hurtle from one problem to the next (and figure out solutions to said problems), it doesn’t quite reach orbit.
Fans of the book will note that I’m not talking about one of the most important aspects of the story, and I’ll keep it that way. But needless to say, the filmmakers and VX artists do a great job in bringing Weir’s vision to life–not an easy task. By accomplishing this important element, they really make Project Fail Mary hum.
Is Project Fail Mary a great movie, question? No, it’s no The Martian. But it’s a faithful, fun, and easy-to-enjoy trip to the stars, and that deserves a fist my bump.
Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.