Project Hail Mary

Oh, just to be completely transparent, this is not a review of the movie Project Hail Mary.

The unevolved part of my brain that craves novelty brought my wife and I to the 2pm showing of Project Hail Mary in the big city of Austin. It was being shown in something called 4DX, which sounded like it could be fun. I am a very bad judge of what might be fun.

4DX, in case you’re not cool and in-the-know like I am, is another “immersive technology” like 3D, Smell-O-Vision, and whatever crazy things William Castle used to get up to in the 1950s. If fact, Castle’s shenanigans are the most direct through line to 4DX, for better or worse. It does really feel like there’s no original ideas anymore.

Let me very quickly talk you through 4DX. Imagine you are in Disneyworld, or some other satanic and godforsaken cathedral of compulsory fun, sitting in a simulation of a roller coaster. Imagine this thing can spray water in your face, puff air on the back of your neck, and run something across the back of your ankles. You are imagining there would be some kind of metal safety bar to hold onto – delete that from your imagining.

Then imagine watching a movie.

The chairs move forward, back, up and down, with no apparent method to their madness. Oh, you’re eating popcorn? WHOOPS, there’s a lateral movement of the whole line of chairs on your row, and now everyone is sharing your popcorn. How very Bernie Saunders of you.

Let me be clear, in case I’ve been ambiguous up to now: 4DX is not immersive. Project Hail Mary is, as you may or may not know, a movie that involves a highly photogenic man traveling into space and then being in space for quite some time. This involves much interesting movement – blasting into space, being weightless, going on dramatic, death-defying space walks – and your seat will also move, but only occasionally and only coincidentally in sync with what is happening onscreen. Mostly, it’s like you’re a toddler being given a rodeo ride on your dad’s leg while you’re trying to watch something that is not rodeo-riding on TV.

And this is in America! We didn’t even have to sign a waiver! The movement of the chairs is incredibly jarring – with a very real sense that you could fall out of your seat when the shaking is especially vigorous. At the least, be aware that if you have a bad back (as 112% of over-40s do), it will be worse after this experience. If you didn’t have a bad back coming in to the movie, consider it a free gift on behalf of the American Cinematic Sadists’ Association on your exit from the theater.

Project Hail Mary? Seemed good. I think Gosling might be my favorite of the Ryans. But I’ll have to see the damn thing again to be sure.

Oh, they’re clever, these cinema people…