Reluctant astronaut: Ryan Gosling in ‘Project Hail Mary’.
PROJECT HAIL MARY **1/2 (156 minutes) M
The latest venture into space by Ryan Gosling – so good in 2018’s under-seen First Man – presents yet another example of a really good story adrift inside a flabby film that’s way too long – a signature trait, it seems, of your standard 21st century “event” movie.
With the Earth’s sun set to snuff it in 30 years due to some weird molecular virus that gets way too much screen time, school teacher Ryland Grace (Gosling) is “recruited” to be part of a mission to fly out in a beautifully designed interstellar spacecraft – aren’t they all? – to a nearby system to find out what’s going on.
While there, he encounters a fabulous, miles-long brilliantine structure from another world that is facing the same fate as Earth.
Aboard this vessel is an alien creature who looks like a collection of rocks (gee, where have we seen that before?) with whom Grace must communicate so they can co-operate in finding a solution to their shared dilemma and thus save each other’s worlds. There’s a message in there somewhere, one suspects.
The film boasts a decent dash of humour and some cool VFX but, man, does this thing drag, taking its time with a languid flashback structure and huge amounts of science babble as Grace explains to us the mysteries and intricacies of inter-galactic molecular replication. How gripping.
Look, the narrative bones involving Grace’s relationship with the alien are perfectly fine and deliver quite a satisfying payoff – so, ultimately, the lengthy sit is worth it.
Yet those bones have way too much fatty flesh hanging from them as the scientists – including the terrific Sandra Huller from The Zone of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall – investigate the cause of the sun’s slow death. This involves a ride on an aircraft carrier (the film gives thanks to the US Department of Defense) and a karaoke scene that, like many other scenes, somehow survived the editing process.
Visually, Project Hail Mary has some issues.
Shot for Imax by brilliant Australian DOP Greig Fraser, the film has us spending an inordinate amount of time looking down microscopes at cell structures and reading texts off computer screens. Presumably, this is not primarily what the giant-screen format was created for.
More jarring is how the film’s cinematography seems to be at odds with its editing, with a cut around every two or three seconds.
You’d get a beautifully composed shot of a spacecraft or a planet or of Grace in his confines and before your eye can appreciate the detail and depth of the image, the film cuts to something else, negating the experience.
That an adventure film shot for Imax would follow the same cutting rhythm as an average multiplex epic – or, indeed, a music video – is very frustrating. Why not hold shots longer so we can appreciate what we’re looking at? Cutting so quickly defeats the purpose of making a film in a big format.
Still, not bad overall yet like too many movies today, Project Hail Mary feels like it would have benefitted from another pass or two through the editing console.
READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME ** (108 minutes) MA
The law of diminishing returns applies pretty harshly with this blood-soaked try-hard sequel to the surprisingly enjoyable 2019 people-hunting-people lark.
Reprising her role as Grace MacCaullay is Samara Weaving – an Australian actress as pulchritudinous as Margot Robbie, with whom she co-starred in 2022’s Babylon – who this hunt around is teamed up with sister Faith (Kathryn Newton).
Arguably more violent than the first film, RON2 is pretty much a thin carbon copy as the pair run across an ornate estate as the members of elite families attempt to end them for the reward of ultimate power over their Satanic cult.
Harder to argue is the film’s nastiness, lack of wit and dreary sameness.
While films such as those in the Final Destination and Saw series showed ingenuity when topping characters, here it’s all stab-stab, shoot-shoot, kill-kill with no invention or playfulness in sight.
Even the gag with the rocket launcher is a lift from the 1985 Arnie classic Commando, and if it isn’t, it’s a heck of a co-incidence. This inevitably prompts old-school cineastes to ponder: “Wow. Commando is 46 years-old? How time flies.”
Undemanding fans of the first film should find it passable. Those sorry souls hoping for summat fresh will be sorely let down by this excessively violent, style-free bloodbath.
And as a footnote, body-horror maestro David Cronenberg returns briefly. Wish they’d asked him how to sharpen up the film’s mediocre mayhem.
PROCLIVITAS **1/2 (103 minutes) M
If a sprinter is running a great race then trips over before the finish line, well, it’s game over.
That, unfortunately, is the case with Proclivitas, a try-hard Australian psychological horror yarn with a terrific build-up that ultimately doesn’t pay-off when it matters most, stumbling when it should soar.
Following the death of her mother, suspended doctor Clare (Rose Riley, very good) returns to her small rural hometown to sell the family abode.
She’s troubled by a tragic memory that redoubles when she hooks up with former boyfriend Jerry (George Mason, also strong), a local handyman.
A raft of deep-seated personal issues return, manifesting in the creepy presence of a talon-endowed entity Clare can’t decide is real or not.
The first hour of Proclivitas is really very good, with solid, nuance-infused lead performances driving an increasingly tense, slow-burn build-up full of brooding atmospherics and fine editing.
Once we get to the money reel, however, you can feel the film straining to nail the Big Moment it needs and so deliver the satisfying, revelatory payoff the well-directed lead-up warrants.
It doesn’t make it. We get to the climax and the damned thing just isn’t the one thing it should be – scary. It stays on simmer but never boils.
In her feature directing debut, Miley Tunnecliffe (a noted writer who also tapped this) brandishes a high level of skill in eliciting grounded performances and creating a creepy atmosphere, the film showing real potential.
But guess what? People don’t go to the cinema to watch potential.
Though it’s far better than previous examples, we have here yet another Australian film getting a tiny release (around 22 screens nationwide) that feels like it went before the cameras a draft or two short. It’ll vanish in a week or two then one day suddenly pop up on your streaming menu.
With an increasing number of films ending their credit crawls with the insistence that the work must not be used to train AI, Proclivitas has the distinction of declaring that: “No generative AI was used in the making of this film”.
Hmm. Never seen that before.
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