Director: James Gray
Writers: James Gray, Ethan Gross
Stars: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga

A journey into the mystic mind of James Grey, Ad Astra kicks the list off with a somber journey into the deeply unsettling unknown both literally and figuratively. As Brad Pitt embarks further out into deep space in search of a missing exploration craft on Neptune, he’s forced to face the fragile turmoil within himself. Certainly space films have been stunning before, and sure they’ve been contemplative, but rarely have the two gone hand in hand so masterfully.

Each crafted image imprints on the mind of the viewer the stunning and relentless awe. Pitting our protagonist against a series of events so cosmic and violent that they reflect his struggle to combat his very nature. As a man brought up to value brain over heart, consistency in character over emotional resonance, we grow to understand the forces working against us are working against his core essence.

The film is a stunning painting frame to frame and the third act, while easily the most problematic in its convenient conclusion and whiplash inducing exposition to kick it off, features some of the best work in Brad Pitt’s already sterling career complimented by an equally mesmerising Tommy Lee Jones. 9/10

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Director: James Gray
Writers: James Gray, Ethan Gross
Stars: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga

I can fully understand that when you haven’t heard from a friend who lives a few blocks away for a long time, you get prepped and plan a visit to the person in question. Just like that. Just to find out why he or she hasn’t been in touch all this time. And to check whether everything is still alright. In most cases, you’re actually not going to experience anything exciting or breathtaking along the way. Now, extrapolate this situation to a much greater distance. From Earth to Neptune, for example. That’s an enormously long time that you are on the road. And if you’re lucky, you won’t come across any life-threatening or perilous situations either. In short, you are on a spaceship, feeling at ease and try to kill some time. Maintaining your ecosystem daily. Going through your huge pile of magazines full of crosswords that need to be solved. Or you give your spaceship a decent scrubbing every week. All sorts of things so as not to get mad out of boredom. I’m afraid that many home viewers will do the same things while watching “Ad Astra“.
Claiming that there’s really nothing happening in “Ad Astra” is, of course, a bit exaggerated. For example, there are space pirates on the moon targeting the convoy, with Brad Pitt among the travellers. Apparently, building a high-tech space station on the moon is a piece of cake. But a solid defence system to throw naughty space pirates back into the infinite galaxy (far, far away) was apparently too much to ask. Next, there’s also a run-in with a crazy primate on a space ship in distress. And the end of the film is also provided with some fragments that are more action-rich. But most of this two-hour-long SF is nevertheless filled with a lot of complaining, staring at an undefined point and moments of self-reflection. To be honest, I’d call it a demonstration of navel-gazing among the stars.

I confess. I expected something completely different. Let me put it this way. I would have preferred “Ad Astra” to be more in the corner of films such as “Interstellar” or “Gravity” (although I wasn’t a big fan of the latter). The first is a more scientifically oriented SF about black holes and dimensions and whatnot. While “Gravity” wanted to be the most populistic one. And this by having George Clooney and Sandra Bullock make a round dance in space. I link “Ad Astra” to a movie like “High Life“. This was also such a film where the aspect of human psychology and conflict situations between individuals took centre stage. And just like the other listed movies, there are some amazing visual highlights in this movie. Those images of space looked impressive on the large silver screen despite their minimalistic character at certain moments. But then again, I wasn’t waiting for a story about an intergalactic father-son relationship with all its ups and downs.

The most impressive thing about the film? The acting by Brad Pitt. The way he plays the astronaut Roy McBride is simply stunning. An autistic character whose numbness and phlegmatic nature make him a suitable candidate for carrying out such an expedition. The way he performs the psychological evaluation tests bears witness to total body control and lack of emotions. Roy McBride is a person whose heart rate never exceeds 80 beats per minute. Not even in a life-threatening situation when he tumbles out of the atmosphere. And the way he shows how emotions slowly seep into his system is simply admirable. After “Once upon a time … in Hollywood” this is also a rendition with which he could receive a well-known award. They also managed to bait star actors such as Liv Tyler, Donald Sutherland, and Tommy Lee Jones. The roles of the first two, however, have little to no impact.

“Ad Astra” is not an epic space story full of sensational space battles or creatively worked out aliens. Apart from some sporadically added action-rich scenes, this is a film full of philosophical musings and impressions of weighty loneliness. I fear that the opinions about “Ad Astra” will be divided. Some will regard it as the most moving film of the year. In general, the Film Press has words of praise for it. So trust me, it’s a film that will be loved by the connoisseurs of the “better” film. Others are more likely to call it plain boring. The message about the loss of a parent and the search for that parent is kind of obvious. There’s even a theological theme to discern. The result, however, is an end-product that looks long-winded with a denouement which isn’t really satisfying. Well, I’m sure that an Oscar nomination will be in place next year. But for me, it remains an honourable mention.

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Director: James Gray
Writers: James Gray, Ethan Gross
Stars: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga

The outer reaches of space are a dark expanse wherein we know nothing but distant stars and ice cold planets. Anything could be out there: artificial life, water, asteroids. But what James Gray looks for in his new film Ad Astra is the resolution for a quandary as old as dramatic theatre itself. Is the son destined to be like the father?
The levels of transcendence beyond the mundanity of the everyday are not unfamiliar territory for Gray, whose last film The Lost City of Z was one of the best films of 2016. In this new production he takes his story outside the stratosphere and into the planetary regions of Jupiter and Neptune.

Brad Pitt – his hair refreshed from the wind-swept days of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – plays Roy McBride, a steely and respected astronaut whose doughy face belies deep-rooted turmoil. His heartrate never raises above eighty, they say. The man is a legend, but not quite on the level of his father, H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones). McBride, many years previously was the captain of the Lima Project, a massive venture to the cosmos in search of extra-terrestrial life. He was the first man to reach Jupiter and Saturn. But sixteen years into the mission he and his crew vanished without a trace. Now, back on Earth, a series of Surges – atmospheric tornados – believed to be bolstered by the antimatter used to power the Lima Project, are causing havoc and threaten to destroy all life in the known universe. Is this the last trace of McBride and his lost crew?

In steps the younger McBride, tasked with going in search of his father on a covert mission to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. In a series of introspective longueurs padded out by slow-moving action sequences, McBride moves through space on a Conradian journey into the travails of his own mind as much as the dark recesses of space.

What could have been a measured drama playing the dangers of space travel with the urgency of broken family connections, quickly becomes flimsy, over-indulgent, and self-important. An early chase sequence on the Moon is so slow and guileless as to be nearly laughable. Gray’s direction is quite ham-handed so that when one particular character is killed, the audience does not know find out who until a few minutes later. There are other flaws with the direction the film takes, as many characters come and go, some appearing for no more than a minute or two with no great significance.

The film’s release was delayed by a few months, leading to rumours of studio meddling. Perhaps this accounts for the uneven use of Pitt’s breathy narration, reminiscent of Harrison Ford in the theatrical cut of Blade Runner. The voiceover does work in parts and allows the viewer into the centre of Pitt’s thoughts and feelings when there are no other indicators to go by, but for much of the film’s running time the performance by Pitt on-screen and the somber tones of the narration are at odds. At times, Pitt seems to be lost on screen, scrambling for an emotion or a gesture to work with but with no help from the screenplay. I can imagine a prompt phonecall from an executive after seeing the first cut and insisting the film is too abstract and a voiceover should be added to clear up the narrative. But it doesn’t work and only lulls the viewer deeper into the film’s pretensions.

There is one montage sequence as Pitt courses through space where we see him alone, as isolated in space as he was on earth. This is the one strength of the film as we feel of sense of weight and timelessness float by. Gray measures out this part of the film with thought and skill. But just as I got involved in the film, the monotony returns. Pitt muses over his ex-lover played by Liv Tyler – although if you blink at the wrong times, you will miss her – and this is another aspect of the story that seems to be tacked on. Also, his confusion and regret about his relationship with his father provides nothing new for a thread so widely spun in other films and dramas. And when they finally collide the denouement is so clumsy and uninspiring it resembles a messy run-in from an old wrestling show.

Ad Astra is a film with lofty aspirations, but with soul and spectacle too unevenly intertwined, it succeeds in neither widening the eyes of the audience or engaging the brain either.

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