A ChucksConnection Film Review

 

Ryan Gosling wears optical white low top Converse “Chuck Taylor” All Stars in the film.

 

Project Hail Mary

by Marcus Angulo

 

Grace wears optical white low top chucks throughout the film.

 

Heroes can come from unlikely places.

 

In the year 2032, Dr. Ryland Grace (Gosling) wakes up from a medically induced coma on a spaceship with amnesia. He stumbles around, slowly learning that he is the sole survivor of the three-person crew on a spaceship launched towards the Tau Ceti system, 11.9 light-years from Earth. Grace begins to regain his memory through a series of flashbacks, learning that he is an American middle school science teacher and former molecular biologist. He remembers that back on Earth some years ago, scientists observed a trail of infrared light, named the “Petrova line”, stretching from the Sun to Venus, and discovered a substance, dubbed “astrophage”, proliferating on the Sun’s surface and slowly dimming it. This dimming will cause catastrophic global cooling on Earth within thirty years, killing everyone and everything on the planet. A sample of astrophage was brought back to Earth, and Grace recalls that he was recruited to study it by the head of the Petrova Taskforce, Eva Stratt (Hüller). Grace learns that the astrophage is breeding on Venus and is able to recreate the process on Earth with the help of security officer Carl (Boyce). Stratt then recruits Grace to Project Hail Mary, an international “long-shot” manned mission to send a spacecraft to Tau Ceti, the only star in Earth’s solar neighborhood not affected by astrophage. This one-way trip is supposed to be a three-person mission, and Grace remembers that he was not a part of it.

 

Grace and Rocky meet face to face.

 

Back aboard the Hail Mary, Grace soon approaches Tau Ceti, but is soon approached himself by a much larger spacecraft, which the Hail Mary names “Blip A”. The ship docks with the Hail Mary and sends packages across the space made of a solid form of Xenon. The ship’s occupant is a rock-like, five-legged alien from a planet in the 40 Eridani A system that Grace calls Rocky (Ortiz). He infers that Eridians “see” via echolocation and creates a machine translation system to interpret Rocky’s music-like language, which then speaks in English via a voice program on his computer. Rocky is a mechanical engineer whose sun is also dying from astrophage, and he is the sole survivor of his planet’s mission. Grace and Rocky agree to combine their shared knowledge and work together to discover a solution. They quickly become close friends, but neither can survive in the other’s atmosphere. Rocky solves this by creating a pressurized ball of xenonite, and the two begin work aboard the Hail Mary to save the stars.

 

Dr. Grace gets his happy ending against all odds.

 

This film is a prime example of why we go to the movies. In the span of two hours and 36 minutes, you are wowed, amazed, heartbroken, and elated at the story that unfolds before you. Being in a theater and experiencing the “Going Fishing” scene or the “Moment on Adrian” is something that anyone who saw the film won’t forget. The heart displayed by Gosling throughout the movie is incredible, and he perfectly captures Grace’s will to try his best against unimaginable odds despite being so unsure of himself. The performance of Rocky by puppeteer James Ortiz is truly awe-inspiring, as you feel such attachment, love, and understanding for what is a faceless rock. This film will be in contention to be one of the best of the year and an all-time sci-fi movie. Amaze, amaze, amaze!

 

 

Best Chucks Scene

 

Grace and Rocky saved stars, statement.

 

Throughout this movie, two things are reinforced to the audience: Grace is not a heroic astronaut, and he only has one pair of shoes. Yes, over the course of the entire film, Grace wears a pair of well-worn, white, low-top chucks. He wears these while he is a school teacher on Earth, and they are the only shoes he has aboard the Hail Mary. These chucks reinforce the point that Grace is not an astronaut, as they show us who he was before he was sent on this mission against his will. They also act as the item that grounds Grace back to Earth, which is what happens in the best chucks scene in the movie. The ending of the film sees Grace now living on Erid in a habitat made for him to resemble the California coast. Grace’s chucks now have homemade shoelaces to replace the original ones, and they fit very loosely. When he steps on the Eridian-made “sand”, it marks the first time chucks have set foot on an alien world. He walks over to the young Eridians waiting to be taught by him, and the movie ends with Grace, the hero, right where he is supposed to be.

 

The first chucks to touchdown on another world.