Ad astra
. | . | . | . |
Directed by | James Gray | |
---|---|---|
Release date | 29 August 2019 | |
Runtime | 124 minutes | |
RYM Rating | ||
Ranked | #239 for 2019 | |
Language | English | |
Genres | ||
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Review
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Cast
- Brad Pitt
Roy McBride - Tommy Lee Jones
Clifford McBride - Donald Sutherland
Colonel Pruitt - Ruth Negga
Helen Lantos - Jamie Kennedy
Peter Bello - Lisa Gay Hamilton
Amelia Vogel - John Ortiz
General Rivas - Natasha Lyonne
Tanya Pincus
31 Reviews
Last Man Floating
I guess space movies can fall into two broad categories, action-packed entertainments or profound ruminations on the nature of life itself, unless I've missed one which did both! I'm probably more a fan of the former, although I've never gotten into the whole "Star Wars" trip, but guess what, this film is definitely one of the latter.
It's the near future and Earth is being catastrophically affected by power surges apparently emanating from Neptune. Now that just happens to be where a famous space explorer Tommy Lee Jones went missing-presumed-dead on a mission thirty years previously, but from where a Mayday signal has just been received. Surely it's no coincidence so Spacecom (what happened to NASA?) sends Jones's son, Brad Pitt, himself grown into an expert astronaut to hunt down his old man and hopefully nip Armageddon in the bud.
I must admit, as space-operas go, I found this one distinctly dull. The story gets padded out by minor episodes like Pitt's lunar module coming under attack on the moon snd a mayday-mission to a stricken ship where Pitt encounters rabid ape-like creatures before he breaks protocol to single-handedly catch up with dad so they can have that much-delayed father-son chat just giving enough time for Pitt to defy the odds and skedaddle back to Earth for the will-he-won't-he-make-it-back cliffhanger at the end.
There's no doubt director James Gray and his production team do an excellent job on replicating conditions on a space-station, the space-walks of the astronauts and the lunar modules on the moon, not forgetting the massive mile-high construction Pitt is working on at the beginning when the next surge occurs projecting him into a seeming death-fall until you realise that of course he had to be wearing a parachute to work at such a height.
I just felt the story lacked depth and originality, too obviously cribbing from "Apocalypse Now" and even the original "Star Trek" pilot before you start reeling off all the other recognisable sci-fi tropes picked up along the way.
Pitt has to do a lot of face-acting and not much else, while Jones can't really bring much to proceedings in the brief screen-time he gets. Donald Sutherland gets a minor part in a rather meaningless role while Liv Tyler likewise gets little to work with as Pitt's long suffering wife.
In the end, once I'd acclimatised myself to the whole space experience, there just wasn't enough happening here either in the action or psychological stakes to take me with it on its journey.
Published
I don’t warm to speculative science fiction – you know, serious science fiction. It tends to have big themes and then the narrative illustrates the themes. Themes don’t come out of the characters and their actions in the narrative, rather the characters are puppets dancing to the tune of the Big Theme. There are probably hundreds of examples that undercut my prejudice. I presume Ad Astra is a speculative science fiction film, but that is mostly because it totally fails as an adventure film – my problem is that I had no idea what it was speculating about. Brad Pitt is an astronaut sometime in the future who is sent off on a big mission (in fact, to save the world – although that doesn’t seem that important). Pitt looks harrowed, the weight of the world on his shoulders. He has a voiceover telling his thoughts which are all very serious and portentous – a bit like a recent Terrence Malick film. There are tensions between him and the authorities and he rebels…but I don’t know what it was all about. There is father-son stuff between him and his father (Tommy Lee Jones) (his father is the cause of the world’s problems), but I don’t know what it was all about. All in all, in its ponderous ponderings, it felt like a watered down Terrence Malick film.
Published
A truly mesmerising space drama with one of Brad Pitt's finest performances. The film is very subdued, there is some action but the sombre feeling is what stayed with me. You could probably pick the story apart and point out so many improbabilities but this is science fiction after all and if you want to be negative and waste your time picking out its flaws then you probably shouldn't bother watching this film at all. I went along for the ride and I was blown away by the look and feel of the film and Pitt's introspective performance. James Gray has made a beautiful and commanding space film.
Published
Disappointing
Too often hints at wanting to be the 2001 of the 2010s. It *maybe* could have been, but is really just a sad disappointment.There is so much pointlessness, so many plot holes, so much that is unnecessary, that the excellent production, gorgeous scoring, and even decent acting of Pitt, has no chance of saving this very pretty disaster.
Published
1 star for soundtrack and editing, 1 star for the moon action sequence. The rest is a shitbox.
Published
James Gray frustrates me. Cause on one hand hes one of the most graceful elegant film makers currently working today. His films are always beautifully shot, gorgeously composed and just masterful. His productions are always handsome and the actors in them put in some of the best work of their careers. But on the other hand Gray is an incredibly inelegant writer. His films always feel incredibly clunky on a storytelling level. Theres always a point in his films where you can hear him clunking through the gears of his story and the characters in this are barely even there apart from Pitt (Liv Tyler gets to look like shes in a sad perfume advert and then vanishes) Which is a shame cause there was real potential in this to be an all timer but is just let down by clunky storytelling and narration (Going for Malick beauty but is closer to the original cut of Blade Runner in its banality) Hoyt Van Hoytema's cinematography is breathtaking. Pitt puts in a great subdued performance (over shadowed by Once upon a time in Hollywood though) and has some of Gray's best set pieces. Wonderfully atmospheric that reminds me of 70s and early 80s science fiction. Its aiming to be Solaris meets Apocalypse Now but just never gets there. I always feel with Gray that his next film will be the masterpiece his talents have promised us for years but it never does. Hopefully one day but unfortunately this isnt it. But man what a gorgeous film though.
Published
Has some visually pleasing vistas and effects, in particular the Mars segment. Max Richter's heavily ambient score supplements the mood well without either being distracting or becoming dull background filler and not going for obvious emotionally manipulating hits or other kinds of saccharine. The story's pacing is on-point as well. It's never rushed nor feels like a drag. Even the scenes that don't seem to work or have any purpose segue well with everything.
But does it go much beyond that? Unfortunately I don't think so, no. I've seen people call this a B-tier Malick/Malick-lite. To me it comes across more as a very sentimental Apocalypse Now in space. The science fiction elements feel like window dressing to serve what is a pretty basic drama about a man dealing with his issues of father abandonment, relationship commitment, reconciliation and so on. The stuff mentioned about searching for extra-terrestrial life or anti-matter energy bursts(?) coming from Neptune (the location of the missing space vessel captained by Pitt's dad played by Tommy Lee Jones) destroying the earth and killing people are largely irrelevant, swept aside, at best used as just jumping off points for its basic journey into a basic psychological drama inundated with very basic insights from Pitt's inner monologue that runs through the film. If this were a Straight Story-type road movie nothing would be fundamentally be different besides missing out on some impressive visual work.
I don't know if I'd call this a good science fiction movie but as a drama/road film with a space backdrop with albeit well-worn themes, about a man coming to terms with a father he barely knew, it is sufficient and helped by the film's audiovisual presentation, pacing and the occasional good thriller set-piece.
And yeah I don't know what the stuff with the lunar space pirates or the complete non sequitur of a scene with an escaped, feral murder monkey on a stranded space vessel had to do with anything. I will say that the space pirate segment though was so well-made I probably would rather have seen an entire movie about that. Mad Max Goes to the Moon, make it happen Hollywood.
But does it go much beyond that? Unfortunately I don't think so, no. I've seen people call this a B-tier Malick/Malick-lite. To me it comes across more as a very sentimental Apocalypse Now in space. The science fiction elements feel like window dressing to serve what is a pretty basic drama about a man dealing with his issues of father abandonment, relationship commitment, reconciliation and so on. The stuff mentioned about searching for extra-terrestrial life or anti-matter energy bursts(?) coming from Neptune (the location of the missing space vessel captained by Pitt's dad played by Tommy Lee Jones) destroying the earth and killing people are largely irrelevant, swept aside, at best used as just jumping off points for its basic journey into a basic psychological drama inundated with very basic insights from Pitt's inner monologue that runs through the film. If this were a Straight Story-type road movie nothing would be fundamentally be different besides missing out on some impressive visual work.
I don't know if I'd call this a good science fiction movie but as a drama/road film with a space backdrop with albeit well-worn themes, about a man coming to terms with a father he barely knew, it is sufficient and helped by the film's audiovisual presentation, pacing and the occasional good thriller set-piece.
And yeah I don't know what the stuff with the lunar space pirates or the complete non sequitur of a scene with an escaped, feral murder monkey on a stranded space vessel had to do with anything. I will say that the space pirate segment though was so well-made I probably would rather have seen an entire movie about that. Mad Max Goes to the Moon, make it happen Hollywood.
Published
I cannot believe how cliched and hackneyed this film is.
I went into it with low expectations. The premise, I gathered, was "Brad Pitt in space"... and yet, with minimal expectations, the film still disappointed.
The actual filmmaking is trite. Pitt's overused and pointless narration irked me ten minutes in, and the cluttered visuals (with the more-than-occasional nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey) didn't do anything for me.
That's not even touching the plot (which is basically "Brad Pitt in space") but it's so melodramatic, with the main character dealing with whether he should've left his wife or not, or if his dad is really the bad guy of the space program. These aren't inherently boring topics to tackle, but the writing doesn't try anything new that hasn't been done better before.
When you think about it, this could easily be a movie about plane travel. Or boat travel. Nothing about the first hour I watched (I turned it off) had anything to do with space. Space pirates shooting at their caravan? Same thing could be happening on the water. With REAL pirates. Now THAT'S a movie. Arrrrgh Astra. Ahoy Astra? Hm.
edit: As of writing this, the "Slow Cinema" genre is tacked on as a secondary influence to the film. I can't tell if this is a cruel joke or not. An unbearably slow film? Yes. But Slow Cinema? No.
I went into it with low expectations. The premise, I gathered, was "Brad Pitt in space"... and yet, with minimal expectations, the film still disappointed.
The actual filmmaking is trite. Pitt's overused and pointless narration irked me ten minutes in, and the cluttered visuals (with the more-than-occasional nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey) didn't do anything for me.
That's not even touching the plot (which is basically "Brad Pitt in space") but it's so melodramatic, with the main character dealing with whether he should've left his wife or not, or if his dad is really the bad guy of the space program. These aren't inherently boring topics to tackle, but the writing doesn't try anything new that hasn't been done better before.
When you think about it, this could easily be a movie about plane travel. Or boat travel. Nothing about the first hour I watched (I turned it off) had anything to do with space. Space pirates shooting at their caravan? Same thing could be happening on the water. With REAL pirates. Now THAT'S a movie. Arrrrgh Astra. Ahoy Astra? Hm.
edit: As of writing this, the "Slow Cinema" genre is tacked on as a secondary influence to the film. I can't tell if this is a cruel joke or not. An unbearably slow film? Yes. But Slow Cinema? No.
Published
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