Short Summary is an original series in which I write brief reviews of movies, TV shows, video games, books, and more. I go out of my way to not discuss spoilers here, but SPOILER ALERT, if you seriously don’t want to know anything, as this movie just came out!

As I type this, the Orion spacecraft, named Integrity, has completed its flyby of the moon and is on its way back to Earth for splashdown tomorrow. The astronauts of the Artemis II mission are the first humans in over 50 years to journey to the moon, and the four-person crew has traveled farther than any other humans in history.

Artemis II had several proposed launch windows, and delays and issues ultimately pushed the actual launch date to April 1st, but the SLS was rolled out to the launch pad on March 20th, the same day that Project Hail Mary came out in theaters here in the States. If that isn’t some sort of cosmic timing, then I don’t know what is. Right around the same time that humans would return to the moon, one of the best space movies of all time was released.

Now, the film Project Hail Mary benefits greatly from the book of the same name. I would honestly recommend reading Project Hail Mary before seeing it, and once you do, you should really see this movie in theaters. I don’t get to say that a lot; however, this is absolutely worth seeing on a big screen with big sound. My husband and I saw it in IMAX, although if you don’t want to go that far, you don’t have to. Any theater will totally do. The novel is fantastic, and the movie is such an excellent adaptation, and I feel like that’s also a thing I don’t get to say a lot. Funny enough, I think one of the last times that even happened was with The Martian, a movie adapted from a book by the same author, Andy Weir. And he wrote a book about life on the moon with the name… Artemis. What a small, uh, universe, I guess. I’ll have to read Project Hail Mary again to write a book review of it, but for now, I have a review of Artemis!

While the movie Project Hail Mary can’t go into all the hard science that the book is known for — and therefore quite a few explanations and moments get surface-level treatment or glossed over —, the movie does provide every visual, every noise, and every emotion that you could only imagine from the novel. The soundtrack alone, composed by Daniel Pemberton, delivers for so many reasons I can’t divulge, so you’ll have to trust me when I say that it’s just incredible. The directors, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, claim that very little CGI was used for the film, which is honestly mind-blowing. Project Hail Mary goes beyond our solar system, and I believe only those two and the crew on this movie could make those visuals possible. Ryan Gosling gives probably one of his best performances as Ryland Grace. He spends much of the first act of the movie by himself in his spacecraft, the Hail Mary, and even throughout the movie, he brings a lot of humor, grief, and heart to a role that demands a lot of the character’s mind, a part that he performs equally well.

I think one of the most refreshing aspects about this film is how much hope and optimism it provides, despite having a story that very much deals with the end of life on planet Earth as we know it. Many other movies have dealt with similar stakes and come to the conclusion that humanity is the problem, or if there’s a different problem, humanity doesn’t have the means or capability to solve it. A promotional clip that’s been making the rounds on the internet since Project Hail Mary came out is of Ryan Gosling himself saying (and I’m paraphrasing, of course), “This movie sends the message that the future isn’t something to be feared, just something to be figured out.” It’s a sentiment echoed by Andy Weir in the book itself. And as the Artemis II mission is currently proving, humans are competent enough to solve problems and explore the stars; we only have to have the will to go out there and do it.

I’ve just found myself looking up at the moon for the past week with the Project Hail Mary score playing in my head, and I’ve told my sons, “Look, there’s the moon! You’re watching astronauts who are up there right now!” I’d happily have them watch the movie right now if they were a bit older, and I absolutely will when it’s more appropriate for them. We’re looking forward to watching the splashdown. It all circles back and reminds me of whenever I watched the space shuttle missions as a kid and even the rover missions as an adult. I didn’t have any ideas of growing up to be an astronaut, yet any space exploration simply fills one with hope, no matter what’s going on down on Earth.

If time and finances allowed, I’d even go watch Project Hail Mary again. While I wait to buy it at home, I’ll have to revisit the book!