If you have not seen Ad Astra and do not wish to read spoilers about the movie, you should not proceed. The following article contains numerous important plot points from the movie.

Ad Astra isn’t what it seemed to be. It’s not the action-packed epic the trailer made it out to be. But that doesn’t mean the movie fails.

Ad Astra features Roy McBride’s (Brad Pitt) top-secret voyage to find his father, captain Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones), whose far-flung project is creating lethal antimatter power surges that are wreaking havoc all over the galaxy. While overcoming countless obstacles — including lunar pirates, space monkeys and comically problematic psychological evaluations — Roy reflects upon his shortcomings, his father’s flaws and the devastating nature of humanity as he presses recklessly toward Neptune, where Roy finds Clifford and The Lima Project, a research station originally assigned to search for alien life. The findings show no extra terrestrial life, a conclusion which has driven Clifford insane.

The movie ends with Clifford committing suicide by casting himself into the void of space while Roy destroys The Lima Project — and the source of the powers surges — and returns to Earth.

Where it went right

1. A bleak view of the final frontier

If space is the final frontier, then humanity will be sure to ruin it. That seemed to be the overarching message. There will be capitalism, corruption and bureaucracy in space, just like there is earth.

Ad Astra takes the elegance and mysticism out of space travel, making it seem a lot like flying on a plane with Hudson News stands and Applebee’s at the moon’s space stations and a $125 fees for on-board blankets. What’s more, resources grow so scarce on the moon that piracy becomes apparently common — different planet, same problems — as Roy and his government group get ambushed by three lunar buggies (in what may be the most interesting and fresh scene of the movie).

Maybe astronauts are cowboys. But they won’t be for long.

In this future, being an astronaut isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. When the movie opens, Roy is working on a space antenna, and it seems an awful lot like a blue-collar, manual labor job in space. As infrastructure grows in space, the jobs of astronauts will grow wide-ranging. The talent level is sure to get diluted. We see that when a space monkey (yes, we’ll keep coming back to the space monkey) kills the captain. Roy has to briefly take command of the ship amid the second-in-command’s incompetence.

2. Brad Pitt

He’s quite good. If the movie is intent upon highlighting the emptiness of space, Pitt juxtaposes that with a Roy Clifford who is full of feelings — even if he’s not good at expressing them.

3. Space’s version of “Apocalypse Now” with a twist

Ad Astra draws some parallels with the book “Heart of Darkness” and the movie Apocalypse Now. “Roy is adventuring to find Clifford, a version of colonel Kurtz. Apocalypse Now is so troubling because Captain Williard becomes the next Kurtz. Roy’s rejection of Clifford’s philosophies and methodologies is what makes the parallels complicated.

That question is left open during the movie: Was Roy actually going to return to The Lima Project to finish his father’s work while the antimatter battery continued to kill thousands?

There’s a moment when Roy does, indeed, return to the ship after his father intentionally spins away into the void of space to his death. It seems Roy might become his father — after spending the movie assuring the viewer he would not. But alas, it’s misdirection. Roy is simply grabbing a piece of the spaceship to use as a shield to get through an asteroid field and back to his own ship to return to Earth. Roy choses to be his own man.

The ending is too tidy for my taste. Perhaps it’s a twisted thought, but the movie might have been more compelling and gut-wrenching if Roy did, in fact, chose to be his father.

4. Toxic masculine repression

After watching a monkey kill the captain, Roy delivers a monologue during a computer-based psychological evaluation where he summarizes the repression of his true feelings, a rage for his father’s selfishness. He compartmentalizes that rage and will continue to do so, he admits in the evaluation. And he passes the evaluation anyway.

The point: we live in a patriarchal society where toxic masculinity and repressed emotions are the norm. And that’s not good.

Where it went so very wrong

1. The trailer

This teased a mix of “Bladerunner” meets “Interstellar” meets “Apollo 11.” That’s a fun mix! That mix sells tickets. That’s also not this movie.

Roy isn’t another character from “The Right Stuff.” He’s a monotone protagonist trying desperately to get in touch with his father — and his feelings. Space isn’t a frontier — it’s a vacuum and a void. That emptiness comes through in the movie, and likely puts off the viewers hoping for more explosions and fewer reflections upon daddy issues and the blight of humanity.

2. “Just let go”

In one of the final scenes, Clifford urges Roy to “just let go.”

Come on. Give the viewer some credit.

Floating in space just outside the Lima Project spaceship, they are leashed together and spinning in circles as Roy tries to bring Clifford back to Earth. Clifford, however, appears intent upon suicide. So if Roy is to survive, he has to “let go” of his father, literally. The image of letting go and untethering his father was enough. We get that Roy is also letting go of his father emotionally. We didn’t need to get smacked upside the head with that line of dialogue.

3. Energy surges

The antimatter power surges are at the crux of the plot. They are why Roy chases his father. They are killing tens of thousands while destroying important infrastructures in space.

And yet, the surges go largely unexplained. How did the mutiny start the lethal surges? Why will a nuclear explosion solve the problems? Why aren’t the surges hurting The Lima Project (and, in turn, killing Clifford)?

It’s probably the most influential piece of the plot — it also gets largely glossed over.

4. Nuclear propulsion

Roy uses the nuclear bomb to propel himself back to Earth — which is a ridiculous stretch of the viewer’s suspension of disbelief.

5. Rabid, face-eating space monkeys

Why?

6. Stowing away on a space rocket

Never mind that Roy swims through an underground lake in a space suit to get to the launch pad on Mars. He then climbs up the launch pad past the engines up the walls and into a rocket ship — as it takes off.

How?

That’s not totally clear, because, frankly, that’s entirely impossible.