‘Ad Astra’ 4K Blu-ray Review: Gray Area [UPDATED]

[UPDATE: Since first publishing this article, an industry contact has confirmed that Ad Astra received a 2K Digital Intermediate, not a 4K one. I have updated the review below to reflect this information.]

The Film

Few if any films in 2019 have exposed a greater divide between critics and movie-going audiences than James Gray’s Ad Astra. According to the biggest chronicler of such things, Rotten Tomatoes, Ad Astra is currently boasting a very tomato-worthy 84% with critics, but suffering a distinctly splat-worthy 40% with audiences. 

Unfortunately, I’m very much with the audiences on this one.

Things start well enough. Very well, in fact, as a promising bit of voice over narration joins forces with a visually spectacular opening ‘catastrophe’ that introduces very well both our reluctant hero and the scale of both the threat to our planet and the film’s ambitions. From here on in, though, things go rapidly downhill.

The story quickly becomes increasingly preposterous as the film gets ever more caught up in the supposed loftiness of its themes and its central theme of setting an intimate portrait of a man against the infinite enormity of space. As if co-writer and director James Gray thinks big ideas somehow give you a free pass when it comes to such ‘trivialities’ as narrative sense and credibility. 

There’s certainly no doubting that Ad Astra is a film that wants to be taken seriously. And there’s nothing wrong with that, of course. The problem is, it wears its weightiness like a badge of honour, piling on layer after layer of themes, references and somber mood without realising that there just isn’t enough story meat or internal logic to support so much self-important cerebral pressure. 

As a result, Ad Astra ends up collapsing under its own ambitions to the point where much of the last quarter of the film in particular turn into a strange mixture of the boring, the ridiculous and the pretentious. Despite the best efforts of Brad Pitt to create a reassuring and relatable heart and soul for Gray to hang his big ideas on.

The audio commentary Gray provides on both the 4K and HD Blu-rays kind of sums the whole thing up for me. After an interesting opening minute or two discussing the purchase of 20th Century Fox by Disney, Gray begins to talk pretty much exclusively and with startlingly academic gravitas about the film’s themes, references and inspirations. And while this may all often be fascinating as a lecture about science fiction and narrative forms, it also explains why stuff that worked in Gray’s clearly self-confident mind doesn’t necessarily translate successfully to a cinema-going audience. 

For instance, while the lunar buggy shootout and ‘monkeys in space’ sequences might well strike most viewers as merely incongruous action set pieces thrown in to try and inject some excitement into the film’s otherwise very sedate universe, according to Gray they’re actually there to give the story’s hero some Greek mythology-style ‘trials’ to overcome on his path to find the answers he needs. So now you know.

Ironically most of the true sci-fi classics Gray refers to in his commentary, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to ET, succeed where for me Ad Astra does not because they manage to explore and portray their deeper themes without either losing their internal logic or, more importantly, forgetting that audiences can only work with and process what they’re seeing on the screen. They don’t also somehow have access to what’s going on inside a filmmaker’s head.

Release Details

Studio: 20th Century Fox/Regency

What you get: Region-free 4K Blu-ray, region A/B/C HD Blu-ray, Movies Anywhere code

Extra Features: Audio commentary by James Grey; featurette on the character of Roy; featurette on the film’s production design and score; featurette on the film’s themes and story; featurette on the use of astronauts and NASA as advisors on the film; featurette on the crew of the Cepheus; two deleted scenes with optional commentary

HDR Formats: HDR10 only

HDR10 MaxCLL/MaxFALL values: None provided (0 nits/0 nits)

Best audio format: Dolby Atmos

Key kit used for this test: Panasonic 65GZ1500, Samsung 65Q90R, Panasonic UB820, Oppo 205

Picture Quality

Ad Astra was shot on film. Though as Gray explains in his commentary track, while he prefers to capture images on film, he does like to turn to the digital process, where the film is scanned in preparation for a Digital Intermediate, for the greater control it gives over the finished image.

Whether this approach resulted here in a 2K or 4K digital intermediate, though, is hard to know for certain. The online materials I’ve been able to track down on the subject with the help of a few Twitter sleuths is contradictory. Since first posting this review, though, a film industry contact has told me that he has confirmation from someone who worked on the film that it was finished at 2K. So the 4K Blu-ray is an upscale of that 2K DI.

But that means the 4K Blu-ray release gives us yet more evidence of just what remarkable results upscaling can achieve these days. For instance, the 4K disc consistently delivers a step up in detail terms from the HD Blu-ray that feels truly granular, rather than just like some sort of over-sharpening or increased pixel density.

Unusually, the increase in detail and clarity is particularly obvious with some of the special effects shots. In particular the stunning looking renders of the lunar craft shoot-out, the distance shots of the lunar base, and some of the exterior space craft shots. 

This may be down in part to the cleaner look of these effects-heavy sequences relative to the slightly grainy finish of some of the more regular filmed content. 

That’s not to say that the more noticeable grain in the 4K Blu-ray image versus the HD one somehow softens the picture, though. It actually just makes it look cinematic and authentic, as well as making locations seem more lived in and real, and the actors seem more grounded and ‘present’ within those locations.

There’s a better sense of three-dimensional space and depth, too - and as Gray points out on his commentary, one of the reasons he likes to shoot on film is because of the natural grain it produces. So in presenting that grain more clearly, the 4K Blu-ray is presumably tracking closer to the way Gray wants the film to be seen.

The 4K BD’s HDR work is nicely done, too. Black levels are consistently rich and deep, having lost none of their darkness during the scan of the 35mm source. Bright light sources and objects stand out with markedly more intensity against that blackness than they do on the HD Blu-ray. 

The extra brightness combines with 4K Blu-ray’s wider color palette very handsomely, too, delivering both more refinement and more tonal impact from Ad Astra’s often very striking and stark color use.

The grain can occasionally come on strong enough - particularly during some of the most intensely colored moments - to become slightly distracting.

It’s a shame, too, that a film with such extreme visuals doesn’t appear on 4K Blu-ray with any help from either of the HDR10+ or Dolby Vision dynamic HDR formats. The sort of imagery it trades in would potentially have benefited greatly from HDR10+ and Dolby Vision’s extra scene by scene image data.

Not supporting at least HDR10+ seems particularly unfortunate given that 20th Century Fox was one of the founding members of the HDR10+ working group, and has featured the format on a number of previous 4K Blu-ray titles. Maybe the fact that 20th Century Fox is now owned by Disney - which has a track record of not using either Dolby Vision or HDR10+ on its releases - has had an effect.

Sound quality

While the HD Blu-ray gets a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track, the 4K Blu-ray steps things up with a very impressive Dolby Atmos mix. 

The addition of a height dimension works wonders on both the sense of three-dimensionality that always makes scenes of zero gravity and the sheer enormity of space feel more realistic and compelling, and the immersive grandeur and potency of the film’s score.

Ad Astra’s extensive use of general atmospheric sound effects is also more effectively handled in the Atmos mix. 

As the Atmos mix played on, though, it did also make me feel slightly more aware than I was during the DTS-HD mix of the film’s relatively minimal use of small spot effects around the soundstage. While this doesn’t make the Ad Astra soundstage the busiest you’ll find on a 4K Blu-ray, though, it does actually work thematically, as the relatively starkness of the mix and the dominance of the score help to internalise the drama, keeping it personal despite the epicness of the story and environments.

The soundstage isn’t afraid to go big for the occasional moments of action, though, as you might expect of a Gary Rydstrom sound design. Some of the rumbles in this film go so deep you’ll need a serious subwoofer to handle them properly, and when impact is needed, impact is most definitely delivered. 

Overall, regardless of whether you find Ad Astra’s audio approach ultimately more soporific than atmospheric, there’s no doubt that the Dolby Atmos mix is beautifully crafted. 

Extra Features

Regardless of whether you love or hate Ad Astra, James Gray’s commentary track is, as mentioned earlier, required listening. It’s dense, heavy and scholarly - as well as being unique in all the commentaries I’ve heard in reaffirming all the reasons why you either liked or disliked Gray’s film.

Kicking off the extras only found on the HD Blu-ray disc are two deleted scenes, one showing Pruitt explaining to Roy his problems with space exploration, and one epilogue sequence showing Roy having built himself a family life now that he’s resolved his daddy issues. 

These scenes are both pretty interesting, and are available with optional commentary by Gray.

The rest of the extras comprise five making of featurettes. The first three of these, sadly, are pretty basic, generic affairs. The first, To The Stars, really just explains the story through interviews with key cast and crew, and uses up a pretty big chunk of its sub 9-minute running time just showing clips from the film. 

A Man Named Roy is slightly better, focusing on Brad Pitt’s performance in the film. The structure still features too many clips from the film and in its 9-minute run time, though, as well as too much explanation of themes we’re now familiar with. It would have been great if this had focused much more on behind the scenes footage and the acting process.

The Crew Of The Cepheus’s relatively small focus thankfully allows room for quite a bit more behind the scene content, including brief looks at doing the make up for the space monkey victim, and the ‘zero-grav’ wire work. But it’s still pretty light.

The Art of Ad Astra is much more interesting than the previous three featurettes. It’s an 11-minute look at the film’s production design and score, and happily contains much more great behind the scenes footage. At least in its first half.

Wrapping things up is solid 7-minute look at how the filmmakers worked with actual astronauts and NASA to try and get some of the sets and physics correct.

Verdict

Ad Astra is arguably 2019’s most marmite film. It’s a shame, too, to see 20th Century Fox failing to  deliver such a handsomely shot film any sort of dynamic HDR support. 

It’s still a very good looking and strong sounding 4K Blu-ray, though - especially in the way it shows how effective 4K Blu-ray can be at capturing the ‘analogue’ look of movies shot on 35mm film. One to pick up and make your own mind about in a few months, perhaps, when it’s a bit cheaper?

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