With an instant sci-fi classic, an over-the-top-sequel and a gross-out action horror movie that punches about its weight, there’s plenty to enjoy on the big screen this week
PROJECT HAIL MARY (M)
Directors: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Huller, Ken Leung.
4.5 stars
A last chance to switch on before the lights go out
The first great movie of 2026 is here, and its name is Project Hail Mary.
Miss it, and you are missing out, big time.
The most important factor to bear in mind going in to Project Hail Mary is that too much advance knowledge of its contents will only serve to diminish the magic of this experience.
However, if you have happened to have read the book from which this movie has been adapted – the 2021 novel of the same name by Andy Weir – you are still going to be engrossed and impressed by what has been achieved here.
(There are elements to Project Hail Mary’s story which, on the printed page, many might have thought unfilmable. Just how the filmmakers decode and depict this tricky tale will be particularly admired by those who passionately loved Weir’s book.)
The striking start point for an epic story is a scientist, Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), waking up on a spaceship where the other two crew members are dead.
Grace has no idea of his own identity, or how he got there.
In a generously paced, but vitally informative opening act, all the blanks begin to be filled.
Years earlier back on Earth, a group of eminent scientists have realised that the sun is dying. The steady fall in illuminative power been traced to a near-imperceptible line of infra-red energy coming from the planet Venus.
Though working as a lowly high school teacher, Grace’s early studies as a molecular biologist led him to discover the substance causing the phenomenon: a mysterious microorganism he calls ‘astrophage’.
Astrophage is so powerful a predator, it is sucking the light from all stars in surrounding galaxies except one.
A one-way journey to that star is mounted, and Grace is chosen to be on the team that has one last shot at finding the clue that might save all mankind.
As we move deeper into the movie, an alone and alert Grace encounters an alien ship, perhaps on the same kind of exploratory mission.
He decides to make contact with whoever (or whatever) might be aboard the craft.
It is here that the real miracles to be performed by Project Hail Mary commence in earnest, and they will not be referred to here.
Just be assured that with Gosling leading the way, the movie releases waves of warmth, camaraderie, emotion, humour and intelligence that are both irresistible and intriguing.
If you can, be sure to catch Project Hail Mary on the largest screen available to you.
The action (and interactions) that unfold remain truly awe-inspiring and utterly engaging throughout.
Project Hail Mary is now showing in general release.
READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME (M)
2.5 stars
General release.
This same-again sequel to the 2019 horror hit Ready or Not will probably delight and disgust fans of the original just enough to warrant a look-see. Vaguely curious newbies to the whole thing will walk away wondering what all the fuss was about.
The action picks up immediately after the first movie’s fiery, bloody and explosive finale. Grace (Samara Weaving) has somehow survived the worst wedding night ever – her (late) husband and his entire (mega-rich) family spent the entire evening trying to kill her – only to find the race to end her life is far from over.
In fact, there is now a wide selection of well-to-do wackos chasing Grace and her kid sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) all over a posh private resort with full intent to terminate.
As before, if Grace survives a whole night of such treatment, she gets to live with no further repercussions.
And if one of her Satan-worshipping pursuers takes her out, their family receives a lifetime of untold money and power.
Once the rules of this ghoulish game are locked down, the movie remains stuck inside a loop of brutal violence, so-so comedy and semi-inspired set pieces that gets duller by the minute. Co-stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, Elijah Wood.
COLD STORAGE (MA15+)
3 stars
General release.
Fast-paced, funny and freakily inclined, this whip-smart little action-horror affair is well worth checking out if empty-calorie escapism is high on your to-do list.
Though densely plotted, the movie is deftly constructed to keep its many chills, kills and chuckles – many of them courtesy of a kooky killer fungus – coming at a rapid rate.
The deathly pathogen going literally viral in Cold Storage arrived on Earth right here in Australia, having hitched a ride on that Skylab space station which crashed in WA in the late 1970s.
Almost 50 years later, this deathly disease – which zooms up the bloodstream to eventually explode a carrier’s brain – is attempting to make a great escape from a crappy containment lab located deep underground in the US.
The only line of defence that may save us from irreversible infection are two low-level lab employees (Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell) and a maverick bioscientist who was kicking around when the intergalactic mutation first arrived (Liam Neeson).
The creature designs unleashed throughout the movie (the fungus can also infect other species of all shapes and sizes) are truly inspired, and the dialogue is zippier and quippier than many will have expected. Good gross-out stuff, this.
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