Co-written and directed by James Gray best known for 2017’s The Lost City of Z, Ad Astra is a visually stunning sci-fi space adventure movie that is much more philosophical than your typical space film in that it explores the relationship between father and son as well as the existence of intelligent life beyond humanity on Earth. Set in the near distant future in which humans have colonized the Moon and Mars, the protagonist of the story Major Roy McBride, played by Brad Pitt in one of his best performances, as a member of the U.S. Space Command is sent on a secret and personal mission to stop mysterious cosmic power surges crippling human infrastructure and threatening all of humanity. Roy is chosen for this mission because it is believed that his father H. Clifford McBride, played by Tommy Lee Jones, is somehow involved despite disappearing sixteen years ago on a mission to Neptune. The emotionally stoic and dedicated Roy, who we discover through flashbacks has had a difficult personal life with his estranged wife and long-lost father, sets out on a interplanetary expedition to the SpaceCom base on Mars by way of the Moon where there is a war between countries and pirates over the control of minerals. He is accompanied by a longtime friend of his father who is played by Donald Sutherland to go to Mars in order to deliver a message to the Lima Project spacecraft, led by his father, that mysteriously disappeared years ago. Without spoiling too much of the plot, Roy goes on even further adventures across the solar system while he is internally grappling with what it means to be a human and trying to understand the intentions of his father who is praised as a hero of SpaceCom. Rather surprisingly, the movie is much more of a meditative experience that relies on magnificent cinematography exploring space and the dreamlike states of Roy as he spends days by himself in outer space. Since his father’s mission was to try and discover extraterrestrial life on solar systems far from our own, the film contemplates on the existence of life and what it means for humans to possibly be the only intelligent beings in the universe. Overall, I found it to be a very well-done space film that has brilliant elements of science fiction in its depiction of space travel in the future in addition to being a personal drama that takes an inward look into the human psyche and our relationships with others, particularly family.
KEITH on Reels 