REVIEW : "Ad Astra" (2019) - Movie by James Gray

Big science fiction movies should be seen in theatres. It is one of those genres that movies are just made for and the computer technology of the last couple of decades has really opened for opportunities that were previously close to impossible to reach.

Not too long ago we had the headspinning "Gravity" and time diluded "Interstellar", both examples of modern day big sci-fi offerings. Maybe Gravity was´nt as much Sci as it was Fi but still an example of space suspense that might as well have been full blown Scifi.

And there are good reasons to refer to these two movies, as I quite quickly got a feeling that we were dealing with something like a fusion of these two styles of movies. Not literally, but clearly had the same kind of feelings with Ad Astra as I had with both of those. Not least in the final notion of ... pretty good, but not quite a masterpiece.

At its core it is a roadmovie, the tried and tested format that never grows old. More specifically we are dealing with a "Apocalypse Now" finding your roots/yourself/the truth kind of roadmovie, just stretched out to basically across the solar system.

Brad Pitt plays an astronaut who is convinced into go looking for his legendary father, played by Tommy lee Jones, who he believed was dead long ago. But due to recent waves of electricity hitting the earth from the area around neptune, where he and his crew disappeared, he is now considered alive and worth heading out looking for.

In accordance with his orders he heads out across the solar system, planet hopping the Moon, Mars passing Jupiter and Saturn, finally arriving at Neptune. Under way he encounters a few unexpected hurdles that adds a bit of detour time to the overall runtime.

This is one of the problems I have with the movie albeit a minor one. The sidetrackings are pretty engaging and fun, but they are mere intermissions in the story of the main character. A lot of voiceover is used to engage us in this rather introvert personality and the movie really struggles with finding a balance here to make sure we dont loose sight of his development while not get bored by hours of monotone voiceover.

Another recurring problem is the lead. It is never a good choice to use one of the "hunks" as lead in a movie that tries to uphold a decent story of the main character. They are always disappointing if not downright bad. I can admit that within this boundary, Pitt tends to be on the better side, but holding back and stay introverted is not a peak competence of his, to say the least. And Cruise or Clooney would not be able to do it either. Try a movie like "Moon" with a great performance by Sam Rockwell, to see the difference I am talking about. Pitt is just boring and artificial to look at when he is not in action. And even the action sequences are sort of toned down to fit that feeling i guess. overall the director does not particularly use action for action´s sake, with maybe a few exceptions.

To be honest I was not impressed with any of the acting. They were all, kind of in a depressed state. That is not in itself bad acting. But maybe they seemed more like they did not want to be in the movie rather than depressed. I am not sure, they gave a notion of dread that was overall too strong for the overall exxperience of it.

But except for these "annoying" aspects, there are also a few very welcome a things I was particularly fond of. Thankfully, we do not get those generic metal-tube-sliding-doors-spacestations we see in every scifi movie the last hundred years. The colonies actually feel like they are organic and inhabited without looking ridiculous. This reallly helps make you feel you are present there. Like, there are "road" signs on the moon to follow. Just little touches like that are very satisfying to me.

The cinematography is generally very good and believable, or maybe I should say smooth. There are a few parts where the director takes some liberties on what could possibly occur in reality, like using half a radar as a personal shield against rocks passing through the rings of Neptune. But I never were one to complain about artistic freedom. As long as it sort of serves a purpose and it does here.

The meaning is actually pretty straight forward and unless you have an iq lower than your shoesize, you will figure this out early on. And that may also be a small downside as it is pretty thin as you have to "wait" two hours before you reach that point and the final showdown needs to have some emotional punch to raise the bar.

The plot is very good and interesting. It fits the genre perfectly. The problem is that two hours is actually way too short to satisfy it. It would have made the perfect, big budget 6 episode scifi tv series. Infact that was my emmidiate thought after the scrolls. What a great plot for a six hour tv series, with one episode covering each if the six involved planets.

Lastly I want to mention something I have noticed in later years. "Older" men are often portrayed as hobo-like or having a sort of nihilistic "turning my back on society" attitude. It is rather implicit in the acting and slightly more noticable here i think. Donald Sutherland has a small part here and he looks like he has not washed his hair for five days and looks old and used. This is also th ecase for Tommy Lee Jones. Unkemmed, greasy hair and unkept beard. Used old shirt. (Luke Skywalker anyone).

Why is this necessary? And Pitt´s character is sort of seen af a product of this older pathetic (toxic masculine) generation. Because the female partner of the lead character is a beautiful and attractive "young(er)" woman who wants a "sensitive" man and not one of those reserved or nihilistic men. And it is incredibly sexistic in my opinion. It is ALWAYS men´s fault and women are just "victims" who no other choice than to leave their "unavailable" husband. Blaming men and excusing women. Can we not alter that stupid agenda anytime soon?

Still the director manages to keep me fixed in the chair throughout the runtime and feel pretty well entertained and at times really surprised at the downplayed storytelling. Again it is not your average scifi action blockbuster but more like a well told story that maybe lacks a bit in the emotional department.

The inspirations are not directly clear, but I believe the opening shots with overlapping lenseflare like globelike objects is an homage to 2001. How could it not be. And when Pitt hits his rocket-ride to back home, flying alone in space and hitting it at great speed, needing to grab on to something it is obviously very much like Gravity.

It does try to combine artistry with action and does a pretty good job of it. The artistic side will always be compared to 2001, the mother of all modern artistic scifi. And I have a feeling of a decent amount of inspiration from 2001, but it is rather in the use of colors and camera angles, than in explicit references. And thank you for that.

I still feel the good parts weighs higher than the negative ones, but over time this could prove not worthy of the "classic" scifi label.

7/10