Ad Astra - Review

Ad Astra

Ad Astra is a 2019 American science fiction adventure film produced, co-written and directed by James Gray. Starring Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler and Donald Sutherland.

In the not so distant future, the Solar System is being struck by mysterious power surges of unknown origin, threatening the future of human life. After surviving an incident on an immense space antenna caused by one of these surges, Major Roy McBride (Pitt), son of famed pioneering astronaut H. Clifford McBride (Jones) is informed by U.S. Space Command (Space Com), the United States Armed Forces branch operating in Space, that the source of the surges has been traced to the "Lima Project" base. The Lima Project had been sent some twenty-six years prior to search for intelligent life from the farthest regions of the Solar System under Clifford McBride's leadership, and disappeared sixteen years prior in orbit around Neptune. A Space Com officer informs Roy that they believe Clifford may still be alive, and he is tasked with the mission of travelling to Mars to try and establish communication with him.

Review: In 1979 the acclaimed Frances Ford Coppola directed the Best Picture nominee “Apocalypse Now” starring Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando. It entailed the 1970 fictional Vietnam War  story of  Army Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) who was assigned to take a perilous, sometimes hallucinatory journey upriver in Southeast Asia during the height of the war to seek out, find and terminate an Army legend named Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a once-promising officer who has reportedly gone insanely mad. In the company of a Navy patrol boat filled with street-smart kids, a surfing-obsessed Air Cavalry officer (Robert Duvall), and a crazed freelance photographer (Dennis Hopper), Willard travels further and further into the heart of darkness to find Kurtz before he becomes a major political and public relations problem back home in the United States.

I reference “Apocalypse Now” because by my account this former story line, down to even their some sub plots and similar scenes........, “Ad Astra” is virtually an identical film. The only obvious difference is one takes place through the foreboding deep dark dangerous jungles of Southeast Asia and the other through the foreboding deep dark dangers of space and space travel. So now, you ask why one see this space version of the prior story. Well, for a couple of reasons.

First, as a reimagining of the same story the whole 2:04 minute running time is simply beautifully exquisite to see. The space travel scenes which is about 65% of the film replicates the best from the landmark film “2001:  A Space Odyssey” which was able to make space stillness – quietness - darkness – coldness a place of equal wonderment, anxiety and horror. Its also replicates from the more recent film “Gravity” the more realistic technical precision aspects of what is required for space travel with its backdrop of beautiful isolation that can also be extremely dangerous at any given moment. In both prior films and “Ad Astra” all three films manage to give the theater patron ticket buyer something more than entertainment.  The patron becomes a spectator inside the story itself and the events of space travel itself with its many endless, mesmerizing and tantalizing visions of what it must be like to “be up there” with also the unending self-questioning of “what would I do?”. So, for its solid reimagining of the former Vietnam story as a space story now “Ad Astra” held my compelling interest throughout. On the other hand, there are few instances I was left scratching head.

First, unless I missed it during my two-minute dash to the bathroom I have no freaking clue WTF “Ad Astra’ meant……………none. Also there is a scene early on where Pitts character who is in route to Mars as the staging area for the deep space travel to Neptune, but first he must have a short stop over at our moon which is so militarized and so commercialized it actual has a “Mall of America” there with its own Applebee’s, which was OK. But what perplexed me was after his moon arrival he has to leave that mall complex to go to another rocket to get to mars. In any event as Pitt’s “McBride” is being escorted to the Moon rocket launch area they run into bandits that were eerily similar to “Immortan Joe” from “Mad Max: Fury Road”, only in space suits and with “laser” guns. They seemingly appeared to come out of nowhere on souped up Moon rovers that had the speed equivalent of any car seen in the “Fast and the Furious” franchise. This scene felt like some obscure add on subplot that neither took me any place nor added anything to the story itself other than the implied point that gangs now also run portions of the moon as well. I guess the Medellín Cartel drug trade in the future has franchised itself to the moon. But I digress.

And secondly, they never explained at all how the senior McBride (Jones) who everyone presumed was dead managed to live in a floating space station for 16 years in a Neptune Orbit without any resupply ships coming to him with any food, medicine etc. But again, I digress.

Brad Pitt in my opinion is a great actor. His portrayal of the son as a stoic, uber calculating and emotionless persona made perfect sense at times and at other times those same qualities did not work as well as the film and his interpretation of the character at that moment seem to veer the film into being temporarily perplexing and confusing. I digress one last time.

Still, in the end, “Ad Astra” while very stoic, very patient and very, very reserved and minus some opaque science techno speak, when all that is peeled away the film itself is a highly cerebral look and examination of the unique relationship between fathers and their sons. Sometimes it can be (as here) very emotional, personal and moving and other times hypnotic and haunting all the while through a dramatic landscape of luxurious, spectacular and sublime deep space vistas.

3.50 Stars