Ad Astra, An Intense Space Movie With Incredible Visuals

Jeff D Lowe9/20/2019 7:46 PM

‘Ad Astra’ is here and folks looking for an intense space movie are going to be pleased…

KenJac (91/100): ‘Ad Astra’ delivers an ethereal and tense story highlighted by incredible visuals and a pair of killer performances from Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones. The story explores solitude and the limits of humanity, with an end product that reminded me of something between ‘Apocalypse Now’, ‘The Thin Red Line’ and ‘Sunshine’. It’s more on the artsy side than a big/loud movie like ‘Interstellar’, so I can see it really not being everyone’s cup of tea. It’s nevertheless a captivating, old school Odyssey in a new age setting that is, if nothing else, made with a master’s touch.

Brad Pitt has the lion’s share of screentime, and rightfully so. The motif of the movie is isolation, so you are almost isolated along with him, emphasizing with his journey. Pitt’s character, Major Rory McBride, is stoic and robotic to start the movie. His marriage fell apart but he doesn’t care, because the only thing that matters is the mission. He has to take baseline tests to ensure his psychological wellness for space missions, never letting his BPM raise past resting. As the film goes on, he begins to come unraveled and lets more emotion fly. I think Pitt did an expert job, reminding me a lot of Gosling’s role as K in ‘Blade Runner 2049’. There is a lot of extremely tense and emotional moments which he nails, especially one gut-punch moment which really had me choking up. Tommy Lee Jones doesn’t have a ton of screen time, but god damn did he make every second count. A lot of how he acts, both in dialogue and how he presents himself physically, answers a lot of questions you have throughout the movie. I don’t know if either of them will get nominations during award season, but Pitt deserves whatever he gets.

From a technical standpoint, I was really blown away by what director James Gray (‘The Lost City of Z’) and cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema (Dunkirk, Interstellar) were able to do with this movie. It’s a total audio/visual treat in every sense, making great use of bright lights and booming sounds at one moment and muted palettes with total silence in another. We talk about it all the time on LCB, silence can be a WAY more impressive tool to build tension than sound. The SFX looked beautiful, particularly during the chase sequence on the moon shown in the trailers. They did a great job blending practical effects with CGI when needed, making everything from zero-g to multiple shuttle launches feel authentic. One thing you always worry about with near-future setting films is how everything will be presented. Grey’s vision, a blend of militaristic and corporate vibes, worked perfectly. McBride takes a Virgin Atlantic commercial flight to the Moon, which has a Hudson News in the spaceport. It just works!

Where I think this movie might find a hiccup with general audiences is the Malickian-style narration and storytelling. Pitt’s Rory narrates an introspective throughout the movie, which helps you get a sense of where his head is at throughout what is a very long and arduous trip. Gray uses a lot of flashbacks to old film, family photos, etc. to give context to what Rory is feeling as well. I don’t think this is for everyone. It’s not even particularly for me, but I think it worked for the movie. The weakest part of this movie for me was the ending which felt a bit cliched. Again, that’s not to say they didn’t work for the movie, I was just hoping for something different.

I loved ‘Ad Astra’ and it’s already in my top-5 space movies ever. I don’t think the general movie-going populace will feel the same way, however. Where I found Pitt’s stoic-turned-emotional performance outstanding, people may find it robotic. Where I enjoyed the narration and the actual story, people may think there’s nothing past the surface-level style of the film. And that’s ok!

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We will wait for Trillballins’ and the Audience’s review to see if the movie is Officially Buttered. We will do an in-depth review of the movie on Lights Camera Barstool next week. Make sure to rate all 2019 and 2018 movies in the links below.

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