Ad Astra

Coppola’s Apocalypse Now in a sci-fi guise, with the same structure and the same orientation points. Gray’s tribute to the master. The same as the book by Conrad that it’s based on, this is a story of the essence of man and our role in the environment in which we live. The result isn’t the same, but that doesn’t matter. The journey to find your father is more important than the destination. There is no lack of action scenes and Hoyte van Hoytema outdoes himself again. Visually, it is like manna for the eyes. Pitt’s voiceover as the guide with a mental state of stoic calm, who doesn’t like people, works excellently. As does the father figure veiled in secrets, played by Tommy Lee Jones. The universality of this story about loneliness is made more intense by the emptiness of space. The laws of physics are not too important here. Despite all the big scenes, it’s an extremely low-key movie. A meditative masterpiece that isn’t for everybody, but few people will walk away completely unsatisfied. (19/09/2019)

It looks beautiful. Hoyte Van Hoytema deserves an Oscar, the vastness and grandeur of space is literally palpable. It's beautiful to look at, the sound design its great, and in that respect Ad Astra can easily stand alongside both Interstellar and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Unfortunately, though, the film is tripped up by its story, or rather its delivery. The plot itself, with its search for a father and other motifs, is not uninteresting, but neither is it fundamentally new or revelatory. That wouldn't be a problem, there are some questions that people will probably always ask, but James Gray seems to have no confidence in his audience and leads them by the hand unnecessarily. Instead of letting me meditate on life in the middle of infinity, he tried to serve me answers right under my nose. It was uncomfortable. It's as if Gray knew he had made an interesting and clever film, but didn't trust his audience to interpret it for themselves, so he tried to make it easy and, for my taste, unnecessarily too easy. Which, for me personally, ended up spoiling the overall experience. (13/09/2019)

I don’t like very much films that want to look deeply smart, but then pull out a scene that looks like something out of a B-movie. Bugger! There are films where the hero jumps at the last second into a rocket taking off, or builds a shield out of a solar panel and flies through the rings of Neptune from one spaceship to another and then there are films that philosophise about human existence, but they should not be mixed. I must admit that Ad Astra looks and sounds amazing, that it has several scenes with great atmosphere and that in the first half I was quite excited. But then the annoying bits of nonsense start piling up to the point that they fundamentally distract from the experience and become impossible to ignore. Everything is underlined by Brad Pitt's voiceover, which is just too much. The film would make a lot more sense if the inner monologues weren’t there, because the actions of the hero would’ve explained things more convincingly. But as it is, it’s like an averagely intelligent person who wants to give the impression they are a genius. They can say a few smart sounding words, but the message as a whole lacks a deeper coherent meaning, and in the end all we are left with is a banal YOLO. A film that tries very hard, but can’t make it. (21/09/2019)

I regret that Ad Astra is one of the few films I missed in the cinema this year, because the trailer was deceiving. It is definitely not a boring sci-fi drama, but a pretty action-packed and intense space thriller, the kind we haven’t seen in a long time. Brad Pitt is excellent in his role and I was very impressed by the colonization on Mars and the Moon, where there are even pirates already (Mad Max in space) – I wouldn't be angry at all if the whole plot was set only there – but the search for the father was also quite entertaining and, moreover, I don't remember a cinematic portrayal of Neptune. The action scenes are awesome, the opening explosion on the Tower of Babel is thrilling as fuck, or the chase with the lunar vehicles, or the fight with the infected monkeys. In places the film is unexpectedly gritty and I liked that a lot. Despite my big fears, it was a lot of fun and a nice space experience. 8/10. (03/12/2019)

Ad Astra is a film that is easy to shoot down or mock with a withering catch-phrase, but which nevertheless hypnotically draws in the viewer and long afterwards smoulders in one’s mind. It is impossible to avoid the impression that something is simultaneously missing and excessive, whether monologues, action scenes or pulpy elements thatturn contemplative absorption into amused mockery. Like a cosmic Heart of Darkness, Ad Astra gives the impression of being abridged, as if a full range of other stops on the road to the destination have been bypassed. Glimmers of the film’s world give the sense of a well-thought-out future and colonisation of the solar system. Director James Gray's film comes across asa several-hour miniseries that has been edited down and promises the possibility of not only seeing more of everything but, primarily, getting everything in a more sophisticated, dramaturgically refined and, above all, more slowly flowing form. I very much would have liked Ad Astra’s runtime to be twice or even three times as long, with proportionately more stops in space and some motifs more thoroughly developed. In its actual form, it is a sort of Reader’s Digest, the fragments of which do not conceal the masterful filmmaking and give a sense of an epic vision. (05/01/2020)