Some scenes good. The film Ad Astra though, which is written and directed by James Gray and stars Brad Pitt, it seems like every new trailer that comes out for the movie only makes you more confused. The visuals were on par with other space movies, I thought. If that’s your jam, you’ll love it. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window), Consciousness lies in the eye of the beholder, Layers of consciousness, September 2019 edition, Global workspace theory: consciousness as brain wide information sharing, The issues with higher order theories of consciousness. It was just one long drone. Oh well. It seems like one of those movies that I emotionally like, but find intellectually frustrating. And the overall look, both in interiors and exteriors, has a very authentic feel to it. But by the time of the story, Clifford has disappeared on a mission to Neptune and has not been heard from in years. From the sounds of it, if they nominate him for lead instead of supporting, he is gonna have some hard competition from Phoenix. In a few quietly searing sequences, though, something else happens, charged and openhearted and lightning-bolt ragged: A wounded soul's gaze illuminates the way. I actually suspect primitive life is out there, and more rarely, complex life, but our nearest neighboring civilization is probably very far away, effectively making us alone. this 100%. The solar system is not a happy place. Very underwhelming and wish I hadn’t gone in with such expectation. It's such a weird movie that way as you can see the insane fan service and homages to these films so apparently, and then it goes on to do absolutely nothing with it's entire premise and setup. Gray realy wants it to be a sci fi film, but it's really nothing more than a few meditations on absentee parenting, the dangers of chasing dreams to destructive ends, and a final self realization about what could make life worth living. The moon was missing a rendition of "Whalers on the Moon.". Gray offers up so much for us to savor; it would be nice if all that umami had a richer aftertaste. Pitt plays a character, Major Roy McBride, who is mostly emotionless, a man supremely competent at his job, but has seen his relationships whither, and seems to be largely going through the motions. By using our Services or clicking I agree, you agree to our use of cookies. The movie Ad Astra is a strange mix. Close. Instead, I walked out of the movie theater thinking about all the ways the Lima Project could have missed something. This will have its fair share of fans, and understandably so, though it is far from a masterpiece. I feel vehemengly disagree. Why faster than light travel is inevitably also time travel. The movie Ad Astra is a strange mix. save hide report. I’m not spoiling anything with that description. Also saw Fight Club 20 years anniversary rerelease a month ago in theater, its year of Brad! moments… and that’s even before the killer space monkeys. Still, it could be a truly great story. Ships are seen accelerating and decelerating. Absolutely none. They could easily have kept all the locations and events with a minimum of rewriting. But that’s really all. Let's listen together and find out! This is spare and mythic storytelling; the more expansive its vision gets, the more inward-looking its focus becomes. I have never enjoyed any movie with Brad Pitt. Change ). What's really great about it imo is that its not just taking a lot up from Apocalypse Now and 2001, but I think it's like directly responding to them in a very intelligent and critical way. IDK if it's a good or a bad thing that people are going to ignore how bad the movie was for the sake of the pretty space pictures. Spaceships blast off from surfaces with rocket stages, but switch to long range drives (presumably ion drives of some type). But the plot has serious issues. I'm not saying this was the worst one, far from it. But as for ship design, use of slingshot to deliver such accuracy and even being able to open post atmospheric re entry doors immediately....ugh, too much made ‘easy’. My take: space monkeys was a waste of 20 minutes, and the confrontation was executed terribly and virtually content-free. I love me a space movie. Beautiful, bold and remarkably executed, this is Gray’s masterpiece, driven by a career-best turn from Pitt. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. What follows is a quest across various locations in the solar system meant to have a similar feel to Captain Willard’s trek though Vietnam in Apocalypse Now. Surges propagating throughout the entire solar system with the dangerous intensity portrayed, would require, well, astronomical power. Even the "action" was just flat out bland. As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. I noted in the post that I thought it might be true, but that was in reference to intelligent life. McBride’s father, H. Clifford McBride (Jones) is an astronaut revered as a hero who pioneered human exploration of the outer solar system. I literally said "just end the movie already and roll the credits". And yeah, if they said there’s no intelligent life within ten thousand lightyears of Earth, or something like that, that would have been fine. Is the ultimate nature of reality mental? Will Griffin and David ever get the premise of the show down to 30 seconds or under? Yet we spend so much time chasing these things while the important people in our lives are made lower priorities. I would say the story is a cautionary tale about a man who is self consumed with his sense of destiny and how his son was making the same mistake until he saw what "destiny" turned his father into. It’s pretty common for them to come out in the comments. Some of the grungy spaceship environment stuff was good. Like me, the space mechanics will likely do it for you. First half was pretty interesting I really enjoyed but towards the end I lost interest felt like there were some loose ends and reality just got tossed out the window. But the story had serious problems, and the stark tone and pessimistic outlook will turn a lot of people off. In place of steaming jungles, this gives us existential chills. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Thank you for this. Thoroughly agree. There are pirates on the moon, man eating primates in spaceships, and disillusioned Mars colonists to contend with. We’ve confirmed there is no life anywhere else in the universe. They take a lot of money. WTF?? Even with a linear narrative that never slows down, a chase sequence that feels like “Fury Road” on the moon, and a suspenseful vision of the galaxy that makes room for any number of unexpected surprises (beware the claw marks inside a seemingly abandoned spaceship), “Ad Astra” is still one of the most ruminative, withdrawn, and curiously optimistic space odysseys this side of “Solaris.” It’s also one of the best. And the ending is driven by what his father found in the darkness, a finding that highlighted the importance of the human connections. best. 10/10. I liked most of it, although I think the “realism” is definitely over-stated. He’s definitely been in his share of movies I have no use for, although most of them I can leave or take, and a few, such as ’12 Monkeys’, ‘Fight Club’, ‘Troy’, ‘Inglourius Basterds’, ’12 Years a Slave’, and ‘War Machine’, and maybe a few others, actually did work pretty well for me. Driver has Marriage Story, The Report, and Star Wars IX and Johansson has Marriage Story, Jojo Rabbit, and Endgame. Thanks! That’s a good way of describing it. Given how accurate many of the details were, it makes me wonder if the overall plot mess wasn’t due to late changes, edits imposed by someone maybe concerned the original story didn’t have enough punch or something. When he was making the broadcast in the Martian radio studio I had to bite my lip to hold back a “Yes, I can hear you Clem Fandango!” reference. Pretty cool! Very ‘meh’. Cookies help us deliver our Services. And it has first class name stars, most notably Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones. Unfortunately, Ad Astra doesn’t quite reach the heights that it should. Log in or Sign up log in sign up. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. The characters are very one dimensional so the whole "this is really psychological drama about a father-son relationship and the son's issue" also doesn't wash because there is precious little character development or psychological or even storytelling depth of any kind. It is a dissection of the all American astronaut trope, the naive optimism of space age Americana, of billionaires’ dreams of commercial space travel, of meaning and purpose in a post-modern world. Catastrophic solar storms might do it, but the eventual explanation provided is utterly inadequate. How do you separate the objective from the subjective? I had similar feelings about Interstellar when I first watched it. Ad Astra is Apocalypse Now in space. Ad Astra, be warned, is going all the way - and it double-dares us to buckle up for the trip. Kurtz, whichever strain of the story you want to pick. I mentioned in the title that this is largely Apocalypse Now in space. I spent way too long trying to figure out how "ad" could possibly mean "through hardship to", "Ad astra per aspera" is Kansas's state motto, New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, News & Discussion about Major Motion Pictures, Press J to jump to the feed. But the plot has serious issues. Pitt's pondering reminds me a bit of Spike Spiegel. The whole thing comes across as a incomplete film. Had to come back to re-read this, now that I’ve seen the film. The further outward Pitt goes the further inward he's forced to look. Agree, just exited a few mins ago. No not producing it, but turning it into Portuguese; translation, then subtitle burning. I can't believe it was just 2 hours long. The movie does make an effort to be more scientifically accurate than your typical space movie. Thank you. So, an interesting mix of quality and problems. Granted, the power surges are just the movie’s McGuffin, but it seems like a modicum of effort could have provided a more coherent motivation.