Ad Astra

Official Australian release date: 19/9/19. Viewed: 29/9/19.

Director: James Gray

Actors: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler

Genre: Sci-Fi / Drama

Rating: M

  

‘Ad Astra’ is another very solid entry into the semi-realistic space films of the past few years – ‘The Wandering Earth’, ‘Interstellar’, ‘Gravity’ – and is conveniently set in the “near future”, meaning some of the potentially questionable physics can be explained away. Major Roy McBride (Pitt) follows in his father’s – Clifford McBride (Jones) – astronaut footsteps. Clifford’s either dead or stranded around Neptune, so Roy sets off to rescue/recover him.

Firstly, it’s amazing that Jones is only 17 years older than Pitt – he looks about 30 years older! Good to see him again, but he has very little screen time – as does Eve (Tyler), Helen (Negga) & Pruitt (Sutherland). Basically, this is Pitt’s journey and most of the film is him on his mission from Earth -> Moon -> Mars - > Neptune. Thankfully, Pitt brings a great earnestness and honesty to the role  and is easily watchable.

As well as being visually spectacular, with all the planets (including Earth and the Moon) and the spaceships looking excellent, the score’s good and the colour motifs are superb, especially on Mars and around Neptune. It’s also great to see a futuristic Moon, with a few winks to ‘Total Recall’. The father/son relationship is pivotal and well-handled – it never gets too overbearing, but is still logical. The isolation of space is very well depicted.

Overall: A very well-made space journey.

Gav's Rating: 4 stars.