I wanted to love the film adaptation of “Project Hail Mary,” and it seems many have, some even uh, hailing it as a potential “Best Picture” candidate. It was a Larry David-esque “meh” for me. Andy Weir’s book was gripping, and like his previous effort, “The Martian,” full of well-documented science that made the plot possi… check that. Plausible. The book depicts a threat to Earth as a mysterious substance consumes our sun (and most other stars), denying its life-giving light to all on our spinning rock. Sounds serious, right?

The novel goes on to describe the global efforts to address the issue, culminating in Project Hail Mary, a mission to discover why one particular star seems immune to the cosmic blight. Once our human protagonist, Ryland Grace (well played by Ryan Gosling), enters the neighborhood of the vaccinated star, he discovers a neighbor. The book goes on to describe the eventual meeting of Grace and the stony alien across the space street, and does so with the trepidation one might expect when encountering a strange new lifeform. Then I recall a detailed description of the process Grace went through so the two could communicate. For me, it was an engrossing page turner of discovery.

Contrast to the film, Grace weightlessly navigates the tunnel between ships provided by his faceless neighbor, is briefly startled when he sees the moving pile of rocks, quickly does a little dance to display non-agression, then types a few keystrokes into a laptop so he and his new pal, “Rocky” can begin an R2D2 – C3PO schtick for the next two hours.

The film was visually beautiful, and Mr. Gossling’s hair was perfectly tousled in nearly every scene, but the pacing was too slow for one lacking the scientific content of the book, and too much of the effort seemed to be on making “Rocky” marketable as a toy. And it is. There’s also a cool LEGO set of the ship.

The highlight of “Project Hail Mary” for me happened on the dying Earth, the night before the launch, when mission head Eva Stratt (played by Sandra Hüller) sings a somber version of Harry Styles’ “Sign of the Times” during a going-away karaoke party for the crew. The scene was perfect, capturing the heaviness of the moment.

Just stop your crying, it’s a sign of the times
We gotta get away from here
We gotta get away from here
Just stop your crying, it’ll be alright
They told me that the end is near
We gotta get away from here

I guess I like my space epics with gravity. “Interstellar,” “Contact,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Apollo 13,” “Arrival,” “The Martian,” and even “Gravity.” Speaking of George Clooney, “Solaris” was good, but the original 1972 Russian version is supposedly better. And while I’m fine with the comedy sprinkled into the original “Star Wars” trilogy, I didn’t finish “Galaxy Quest,” “Mars Attacks,” or “Spaceballs.” I don’t know. For me, space is serious. Now get that Millennium Falcon off of my lawn.