Stars: 4.5/5
Space is horrifying.
There’s no way around it. For all the wonder, spectacle and awe that is typically associated with the final frontier, the idea of floating off into the vast, endless vacuum of space with no hope of return is more terrifying than any monstrosity del Toro, Carpenter, or Craven could conjure. Recent films have overcome the majesty of space to portray its harsh, unforgiving nature, such as “The Martian” and “Gravity.”
Functioning as a rounding out of the unintentional, “‘Ocean’s 11-cast-has-a-bad-time-in-space,” series, Brad Pitt stars in “Ad Astra,” the latest film from “The Lost City of Z” director James Gray, and offers yet another frightful look into the reality of space travel.
Pitt stars as Major Roy McBride, an astronaut for the United States Space Command, or SpaceCom, in the near future. The son of legendary, and missing, SpaceCom pioneer Clifford McBride, portrayed by Tommy Lee Jones, Roy is sent on a mission to unravel a mystery that threatens the state of the Milky Way we call home and discover the dark circumstances behind his father’s disappearance so many years ago.
The relatively simple plot, however, allows for a mediation on fatherhood, masculinity and leadership, as director James Gray delicately balances the fine line between artistic integrity and popcorn entertainment with the skill of a master artist, crafting what might be one of the greatest space odysseys ever put to film.
Gray’s amalgamation of so many space films that came before it on paper should not have worked, but, somehow, the director combines the very best of what makes space cinema so enthralling to begin with, yet it all feels so original and fresh that those creative choices feel like a passing of the torch rather than an artistic intrusion.
Combining the grand spectacle of Stanley Kubrick, the internal intimacy of Alejandro Innaritu, the horror and tension of Ridley Scott, and the visceral intensity of J.J. Abrams, Gray crafts a painting of a film, with beautiful wide shots of small, almost microscopic ships passing by the terrifyingly large planets that seem like myths to our Earth-centric minds, yet the film knows when to focus on the humanity at hand.
Pitt turns in what just might be his career’s best work as Roy McBride, where he displays the trauma of survival against all odds and the pain of losing that which means most to him, while there’s an undeniable hope deep within his soul.
McBride is not only questioning his father’s disappearance and the mystery surrounding that but is also undergoing a test of his own masculinity, and sense of leadership and morality, or lack thereof, of his actions are called into question at several points throughout the run time of the film. He wants to be the leader and man he’s supposed to be but risks going insane and shoving his emotions back down his throat by doing so while fitting that traditional heroic role.
Despite this beautiful artistic merit and meditation on fatherhood and masculinity, Gray does not forget to entertain, as several jaw-dropping sequences, such as a lunar vehicle chase that would make Ethan Hunt and Jason Bourne blush and an underwater crawl through the underbelly of a Mars colony drew me to the edge of my seat.
The film has a white-knuckle sense of tension throughout as if Gray knew the audience needed to be as scared of space as its characters.
“Ad Astra,” is, in a word, a masterpiece. In a sentence, it is a masterclass in combining challenging philosophical questions with elevated popcorn entertainment. Beautiful camera and visual effect work screams for this movie to be seen on as big a screen as possible, and Pitt turns in a performance that anchors the grand space odyssey to the heart of what makes mankind so powerful.
This is a very rare kind of film that does not come around very often, and it deserves to be seen by eyes both curious to the nature of masculinity and in awe of the majesty of space. This slow-burn is a challenging watch at times, but the explosion at the end of the fuse is rewarding, awe-inspiring and hauntingly real.