The best part of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary? Rocky the alien. The best part of Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s big screen adaptation of the novel? Also Rocky the alien.

When Ryan Gosling interacts on screen with his alien buddy, which he does for more than half of “Project Hail Mary,” he wasn’t staring at a green screen as cameras rolled. Instead, he was playing off of an elaborate puppet manned by James Ortiz,