Brad Pitt has been one of Hollywood’s shining stars for quite some time now. And while he’s always starred in blockbuster caliber films, his career for the majority of this decade has seen the actor put out some of his best work. His work in Moneyball earned him his most recent of three Oscar nominations. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, earlier this year makes a strong case for him to get a fourth nomination for Best Supporting Actor. But before we head into Oscar season, Pitt gave another performance in Ad Astra this year that merits attention.
Upon its release, Ad Astra has divided critics and audiences, with critic reviews coming more positively than audiences negative reactions. The film currently sits at 83% among critics and holds a Rotten Tomatoes score of 42% among viewers. It’s one of those movies you’ll have to watch and judge for yourself.
When a series of powerful storms known as surges begin happening, an astronaut, Roy McBride, is met with the confidential assignment of going to Mars to convey a message to his lost father, Clifford McBride, who is believed to be alive, as well as a rogue agent. This leads Roy on a dangerous quest through space to locate his estranged father.
Right from the start, it’s not an overstatement to say, that one of Ad Astra‘s knights in shining armor is its visual effects. This movie is a cinematic feast for the eyes. Its drop-dead gorgeous cinematography is enough to sustain an audience. One of the chief complaints about the film has been pacing. In my opinion, this didn’t feel like a problem at all. The ambiance in the movie added to its aura, and it made the action sequences all the more intense and dangerous. Pitt and the rest of the cast perform exceptionally well and do it with ease.
Ad Astra has the ingredients that should make up a solid science fiction flick. It’s by far one of the most beautiful films this year, but it has a few significant flaws that can’t go without mentioning. One of my biggest complaints is Roy’s narration throughout the entire movie. This, while obviously intended to be a tool of intimacy between Roy and the audience felt more intrusive to the film’s progress at times, and honestly felt unnecessary, as well as pretentious in certain scenes. It took away from the ambiance, and truthfully, the actors would have done an excellent job telling the story themselves. Many think the movie is too much of a slow burn, but I felt that this was one of the film’s strong suits. The visuals themselves were enough to keep you drawn in, and Ad Astra shows that a movie doesn’t have to be action-packed to be entertaining.
Now despite its visual beauty, there are some inconsistencies regarding the rules of space. There are moments in this film that are so hard to believe that you have to go, “what?” to yourself — a sequence involving baboon test subjects who maul a Captain on an abandoned ship. The baboons float around breathing as if they were back on earth; meanwhile, Roy tries to fix the Captain’s broken helmet with duct tape. Or a better one is when Roy uses a bomb intended to destroy his father’s ship to blow himself back to earth. This is happening on Neptune by the way, and I understand that it’s science fiction, but for a movie with a tone as serious as Ad Astra‘s, it’s a throw off, especially after such a wonderfully crafted, believable first half.
Even with these inconsistencies, Ad Astra is a beautiful looking film, with a good enough story to visit. It’s aesthetic is at times a nod to Kubrick’s 2001: ASpace Odyssey though nowhere near that caliber, and even though it has audiences, and critics at odds, you have to admire all the bells and whistles.
