Reviewed by Victor Rebikoff.
Director: James Gray, 20th Century Fox, M 122 Minutes.
James Gray’s latest film since his 2016 release of ‘The Lost City of Z’ is a painstakingly, bleak sci-fi drama featuring Brad Pitt (‘Allied’) as a fervent astronaut in search of his father who disappeared during a space mission.
In supposedly his first space movie, Pitt plays the emotionless Roy McBride sent across the galaxy to find his famous father Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones –‘Criminal’) gone missing following the older McBride’s failed expedition more than 20 years earlier.
Subsequent to the instructions received from Space Command, Roy realises his primary mission is to destroy the unexpected power surges that threaten the planet’s human life, considered to have been caused by Commander McBride’s participation in the Lima Project.
As his rocket blasts-off towards the lunar base, Roy is accompanied by his father’s former friend Thomas Pruitt (Donald Sutherland –‘Hunger Games’), before heading to Mars and onto Neptune where the source of the surge is linked to the Lima Project.
Determined to first make contact with his missing father and then destroy the power surges, Roy further discovers that his emotional journey is constantly fraught with danger, which is made worse by having to comply with regular psychological evaluations.
On reaching his destination, Roy’s moment of truth finally arrives after meeting his father, the sole survivor of the base at which Roy had earlier placed a nuclear device to create maximum destruction once both of them had departed for Earth.
However Roy becomes extremely emotional and distressed at seeing the deterioration in his father’s mental condition, making it particularly difficult for McBride Sr. to leave the Lima Project base to return to Earth with his son.
There are similarities in Gray’s sombre production to such space movies as ‘Gravity’ and ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’, largely due to the superb special effects used to show the beauty and grandeur of space in particular the immense isolation.
The major highlight in the movie is Pitt’s impressive performance as the lonesome astronaut with his own personal problems seeking to renew his relationship with his distant father and prevent a disaster of his father’s making from destroying the planet.
In some respects ‘Ad Astra’ is a slow-burn movie experience centred on an emotionally troubled central character having to endure the loneliness and isolationism of outer space.
Vic’s Verdict: 3 ½ Stars
