Ad Astra

Ad Astra

Starring Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler

Directed by James Gray

The Story:
In the near future, Major Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) is working on a space station antenna when an unexplained surge occurs, plummeting him to earth.  He survives, and finds out that these surges have been happening all over the world, resulting in numerous deaths.  He's told by the higher brass that these surges are being caused by the Lima Project - a project started sixteen years ago in the hopes of finding life outside earth, but resulted in loosing contact near Neptune.  The project was led by Roy's father Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones), and Roy now thinks he might be alive.  He ventures out to the unknown of space to find his father and stop the surges before they eradicate humanity, and along the way learns more about himself and the family he thought he knew.

The Synopsis:
I've always been a huge fan of space films, because I find the very concept of outer space so intriguing.  It's a vast, seemingly never-ending expanse of space that contains so many beautiful and unique elements that need to be explored, but so far the farthest we've gotten in human exploration has been to the moon, the equivalent of walking next door to our neighbor.  Films like "Gravity," "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Interstellar," and "The Martian" re-ignite our imagination for exploring what lies out there is the cosmos, and "Ad Astra" will easily be added to the list of epic space exploration films - even if it's not everyone's cup of tea.  Many people who've seen it calls it boring, but in reality it's a slow-burn drama that doesn't adhere to the typical space action-adventure films, but rather serves a duel theme: exploring the vast unknown out there, and within ourselves as well.

Brad Pitt stars as Roy McBride, a Major in the U.S. Space Command who became an astronaut after admiring his father, who seemingly died while on a mission sixteen years earlier in hopes of finding life out in the cosmos.  When a series of surges strike earth, it comes to light that his father's assignment was still out there somewhere, and maybe his father as well, resulting in Roy heading into space to find out the mystery.  Much more than just a space epic, it's a story between an estranged father and son, whose sins of the father might be passed down to the son, and ultimately a story about the possibility of life beyond our planet: are we really alone, and therefore unique, or is there countless other worlds with lives out there, leaving us as nothing less than ordinary?

Many people say this is Brad Pitt's finest performance, and while I agree he gives a tremendous performance, I don't find it to be his best.  He plays Roy McBride like a live-action HAL-9000, completely stoic and unemotional, who deals with rational thought and doesn't let his emotions control him (the reason he was selected to be a part of the mission in the first place is due to the fact that his heart rate has never rose beyond 80, even after plummeting to earth).  While he begins the film as this stoic person, he begins to show real emotion as he gets closer and closer to his father, and farther and farther from his home.  He encounters different people who showcase raw emotions, and seems to learn from them.  He's upset at the thought of how badly humanity treats whatever land they land on - when he arrives on the moon before heading to Mars, he sees that it's been colonized by different countries and there's even land wars now on the moon - along with a Subway.  Much like Sandra Bullock owned "Gravity," Brad Pitt easily owns "Ad Astra," and makes it work.

The supporting cast is less than stellar, except for Tommy Lee Jones, who shines as Roy's distant father who may or may not have gone totally insane.  Ruth Negga is an unemotional middleman for Roy, Donald Sutherland serves as his Colonel who's on for about five minutes, and Liv Tyler is Roy's now-non-existent ex-wife who's in the film even less than Sutherland.  The supporting characters are there to support Pitt's performance, and they do that job well as Roy learns from them and has to deal with their weird idiosyncrasies - such as an astronaut who shows fear and has issues landing a ship.

Much like other space operas, director James Gray doesn't skimp on the visuals, as they're stunning and absolutely spell-binding, especially in IMAX.  The vastness of space is visualized in all its grandeur as Roy traverses the planets - his ship looks like an ant compared to the greatness of Jupiter and Saturn, and Neptune offers a beautifully blue hue.  His adventure on the moon is also visually stunning, as we see the great blue marble in the far distance and the vast emptiness that awaits, and we see Mars as an almost wholly abandoned planet in majestic red hues that really proves its outer-worldliness.

To add emotional depth to the story James Gray relies on Max Richter to supply ample musical scores, and works brilliantly.  From the opening moments of the film we're gifted with unique sounds that reverberate through our senses, and James Gray explained that the sounds during the opening shots of the movie was an altered, sped-up recording of Tommy Lee Jones saying, "I love you, my son" repeatedly, and only adds to the emotional depth that Pitt delivers and presses the theme that the film is much more than space exploration, but the exploration we must take within ourselves.

The Summary:
If you're going into "Ad Astra" expecting some action epic set in space, you'll be sorely disappointed, but if you're expecting a well-crafted slow-burn thoughtful story delivered with impeccable visuals and score, then you'll enjoy this tour-de-force Brad Pitt-helmed space epic.

The Score: A