I have a certain fondness for cerebral sci-fi. In a sea of CGI-nonsense offerings like Jupiter Ascending, finding a carefully-thought-out character-driven story is a gem. Ad Astra fits into this category. In it, Brad Pitt is a near-future astronaut who must mount a solo mission to Neptune to stop the power surges emanating there. The catch is that the surges appear to be emanating from his father’s lost-in-space ship, and they may be intentional.
Pitt’s character is very much like Ryan Gosling’s Armstrong in First Man, both portraying an emotionally-detached cool-as-ice rocket man capable of handling any life-and-death situation, as long as it doesn’t involve feelings. First Man starts with an amazing trans orbital flight and near-crash piloted by Armstrong; Ad Astra kicks off with a space-tower catastrophe and calm fall by Pitt.
What’s great about both of these openings is that they’re directly related to the plot. In Pitt’s case, the antenna searches for alien signals, and the catastrophe is caused by the Neptune surge. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about the action scenes in the rest of the movie.
I sympathize with cerebral sci-fi. Nearly anytime the story involves a long journey, complicating factors must occur to keep it interesting. It works best when those complications are related to the overall story. 2014’s Interstellar had a partially-mad astronaut stranded from the previous expedition as the threat. Ad Astra fares worse. In no time, Pitt is chased by Moon pirates and killer monkeys on mayday ships. Neither has any relationship to the plot, other than flavor for the world-building. The moon attack is awesome to watch - Mad Max with moon buggies - and felt like something new that I hadn’t seen in sci-fi before.
The plot points which put Pitt there didn’t make much sense, just as the subsequent obstacles along his Neptune journey were a mess. Pitt is asked to send a transmission to his father to try and get the surges stopped. So far, so good. Instead of doing this from Earth, he is flown to the Moon’s spaceport. From there, he must take an overland buggy ride to another spaceport to get on a rocket to Mars. Despite the military drivers warning of pirate attacks, the buggies are unarmed (except for sidearms) and there is no recon or support. Enroute to Mars they receive a distress signal from a random ship. When Pitt objects to the side quest (he is literally trying to solo-save the entire solar system, after all), he is overruled. Their plan to split-up and search the derelict ship doesn’t end well.
And so the plot trudges, throwing obstacles in front of Pitt so he has something to do. We get his constant narration along the way. In some ways, this works, and reminds me, in tone, of George Clooney in 2002’s introspective Solaris.
In other places, it doesn’t. For example, when the Mars crew encounters the distress signal, the camera lingers on the fidgeting co-pilot, who responds to the captain’s request for him to go on the away team with a hesitant, “Sure, doesn’t matter.” Pitt narrates, “He’s scared,” in case none of us are capable of reading human expressions. The movie itself even narrates to us. The opening screen had the unnecessary text, “In the near-future…” This seems like something the viewer would quickly figure out in the first space-antenna scene.
Ad Astra does, however, nail the visuals. If you’ve seen Interstellar, you’ll be familiar with realistic space-flight shots where the camera is mounted to the fuselage and star fields swing as maneuvering jets fire.
The moon buggy fight not only looks real, with the harsh unfiltered lunar sunlight we previously saw in First Man, but even the way the buggies wreck and shred looks authentic to the moon’s reduced gravity. Visuals fare scientifically well, but plot points don’t. During a rocket ship take-off from Mars, Pitt and crew conduct a fight inexplicably in zero-gee, rocket engines blaring plumes of fire underneath the ship.
So, what to make of Ad Astra? Despite my nitpicking, it’s worth seeing. The space imagery is terrific, and the feeling that Pitt is traversing massive, open space and high-altitude visas is something that only movies like Gravity have accomplished. Even the plot points I grumbled about - moon pirates and all - are still great fun to watch and a refreshing change from standard sci-fi visuals. The story itself is about Pitt’s relationship with his father, and the journey is more of an allegory than a physical one. It’s ripe with visuals of Pitt falling and ascending. In the movie Gravity, there’s a scene where Sandra Bullock takes a moment to feel safe, floating in zero gee in her underwear, airline draped like an umbilical. Ad Astra does much of this same thing.
Pitt’s psychological state is a focus as well, with him taking verbal tests throughout the story where he must persuade a virtual therapist that he is fit for space travel. It reminds me of Gosling’s replicant baseline tests in Bladerunner 2049. Similar to Gosling, when his calm assurances mismatch his actual emotions, consequences occur.
Overall, I recommend it if you enjoy movies like Solaris. Disconnect the scientific gripes of your brain, and just enjoy the space ride.