It seems that astronaut movies have carved out a nice little niche for themselves these past few years in Hollywood. Stay with me here…
Remember that sweet space movie from the 2010’s? The film looked gorgeous, had real tension, great music, amazing visual effects, and exemplified that nice balance between a large audience crowd-pleaser, as well as a serious award contender.
If that doesn’t sound familiar, perhaps it will as I pull back the curtain.
Since 2013’s Gravity proved to be a legitimate box-office juggernaut as well as an Oscar darling, winning several awards including Alfonso Cuarón’s first Best Director Oscar, there seems to be a pretty solid space exploration movie each year.
2014 had Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, 2015 was Ridley Scott’s The Martian, and 2018 had Damien Chazelle’s First Man. Each of these four films have some serious appeal on several levels.
As previously stated, these particular movies seem to be one of the last remaining crossroads between movies that actually make blockbuster money while still garnering attention come award season. They each have a well-respected director and that old Hollywood feel of being lead by one or two massive stars: Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, Matthew Mcconaughey at the height of his so called “McConaissance,” Matt Damon, or Ryan Gosling.
Enter this year’s addition to this exclusive club: Ad Astra, directed by James Gray. Headlined by another massive star, Brad Pitt (who is having himself quite the year with this movie and his scene-stealing performance in Tarantino’s latest Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Ad Astra looks “to the stars” in another beautiful, high tension, celestial journey that I think deserves to be held in conversation with these other movies.
Gray describes his movie as being “like Apocalypse Now in space.” This seems like a fitting comparison. For those of you unfamiliar with Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam war epic, Apocalypse Now focuses less on the direct combat of war and more on how a long, secret mission through the war has a unique and incredibly taxing effect on the central character and his emotional state. Ad Astra follows this outline pretty closely, as it revolves around a high-stakes journey taken by Astronaut Roy Mcbride (Pitt) through the depths of space to find his father, played by Tommy Lee Jones, who may or may not be directly responsible for some recent catastrophes seen back on earth
As I believe overall this movie is strong, it is perhaps more fitting to start with what doesn’t work.
For those of you expecting some sort of rip-roaring, high octane adventure that lies somewhere on the spectrum between Star Wars and Gravity, this movie isn’t that. In fact, I would easily forgive someone that calls this movie sloooow. Without a doubt, the film’s pace is the main thing that people would not enjoy. The good news is that this might be the movie’s only real flaw. Despite the fact that it progresses slowly, the movie does not drag on.
The movie is more of a slow burn, with a few high-tension action scenes thrown in sparingly. For the type of film that Gray is trying to make, this works pretty well. The contrast between the very realistic action scenes that carry real stakes and consequences and the long, solemn stretches of solitary space that Pitt endures make the viewer feel as Pitt does: wary of space and all it entails, but constantly vigilant of the real threats that could come at any time.
Although the movie may feel more like an Interstellar or a 2001 in that it deals with some of the more abstract and introspective components of space travel, I appreciated the film’s restraint. You’ll find no spoilers here, but I will say that when it comes to both the action scenes and the film’s finale, there are plenty of opportunities for the movie to take a sharp turn into the more conventional, or even absurd, Sci-Fi movie tropes. However, it maintains its course as a realistic, bleak view of space-based action scenes. The ending also offers a reasonable prediction of what the near future could hold.
The only other possible complaint people may have with this movie is that it feels a bit soulless. However, the sterile feel of the film is completely intentional. Ad Astra deliberately explores the rules of its own universe, namely that exploring space requires complete emotional stability, or lack of emotion. I’m happy to say that this actually plays into the movie’s larger, more rewarding themes.
Despite my earlier comparisons to Gravity, Interstellar, and The Martian, it unfortunately appears that Ad Astra will go the way of First Man by becoming an underperformer at the box office and likely forgotten in the major, non-technical categories come Oscar season. Whatever the Academy will think, I still believe that Ad Astra is a very good movie that’s worth a trip to the theater and the hours of thought and contemplation it will leave you with on the ride back home. •
