Ad Astra (2019)

Ad Astra tries to project an image of being an intelligent and realistic science fiction devoid of the usual noisy space fights, glittering giant spaceships, or dangerous alien beings. It takes place in a future where humans have conquered space travel, and even have commercialised space travels to the moon and mars. The story focus on the story of one astronaut, played by Brad Pitt, who is somehow linked to sudden cosmic energy surges that's causing major disasters on earth. He needs to make contact his astronaut father who went MIA many years ago in a failed project to the planet Neptune where the source of the power surge seem to be coming from! While this space adventure mystery element may work out initially as it unfolds, the slow pace and seriousness of the way it is presented begins to feel boring. Brad Pitt is made to act like his emotions are all bottled up and yet be able to function super efficiently and get out of incredibly dangerous situations without a scratch. In fact, some nagging questions on how he can manage to manoeuvre himself in the zero gravity outer space without the benefit of any attachment to the space crafts, keeps bugging me long after the credits have finished rolling.

At times Ad Astra appears to be in conflict with itself as to whether it wants to be a space action thriller or merely a space mystery without the big guns and explosions. Two sequences stick out like they belong to another movie - the moon buggy chase and gun exchanges with so called "space pirates", and a gripping sequence when the journey to Mars was interrupted by a "mayday" distress call. In fact, these two action sequences were far more interesting and compelling than the core story, and I can't help thinking how much more exciting the movie would be had it be about these episodes instead. Why there are "space pirates" in the moon and what was the background which resulted in the "mayday" distress call were never explained and in fact these two sequences could very well have been left on the cutting floor without impacting on the main story one bit as they had no integration to the main plot.  Probably added in to add some "action" to the flow ...

Watching the imagery and even the plotline of the story, I can't help making comparisons to the Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, 2001 is clearly a far more superior and thought provoking movie despite it being made over 50 years ago without the benefit of all the current computer graphics technology. All in, for me, Ad Astra, failed to impress and what I would consider as a missed opportunity.