As
much as NASA, JPL and pretty much every Star Trek fan loves the idea
of humanity diving head-long into distant space travel, colonizing
planets and, perhaps, contacting some form of intelligent life, most
people are more down-to-Earth (no pun intended) on the whole idea of
traveling too far from a planet where, you know, we can actually
breathe. This is not saying that space travel is necessarily a
terrible idea or the concept of habitats on the Moon and Mars are
horrible ideas that will doom us to never learn from our mistakes
(because we'd just be putting our own species somewhere else to
propagate and destroy a planet that didn't have life to begin with).
Its the idea that many people who promote such practices are using
the idea of Mars and other potentially colonization-ready planets as
an excuse to avoid problems that the same intelligence and ambition
could probably fix if they focused just a little bit more attention
closer to home. Hence the concept of James Gray's Ad Astra, a movie
that tries to yell this at you with all the eloquence of a
sledgehammer to the face.
Okay,
to be nice, Ad Astra isn't necessarily a bad movie from a strictly
film perspective. It does try to stay a little bit on the side of
science a la Interstellar and Brad Pitt, despite not really being in
his comfort zone here, is still pretty well cast for a part that
spends 40% or so zooming in on his face while he tries to argue
philosophically with himself for a two hour movie (yes, he actually
does this). And, yes, even the whole film's twist (what's the point
of dedicating one's entire life to a noble cause if you wind up alone
in the end because of that pursuit) is a rather sad yet hopeful turn
from a genre usually about people floating through space and doing
seemingly impossible things (he does some of that to). In all, a
pretty interesting companion to Christopher Nolan's Interstellar with
better character development and none of the nonsense about black
holes and time travel. Plenty to love for the space nut in us all.
Unfortunately,
mostly due to the movie being a much bigger “tell don't show”
kind of movie, people coming here to see astronauts float through
space and visit far away planets (or, in this case, the Moon and
Mars) will be sadly disappointed at just how lackluster said
locations are. The Moon and Mars bases are both bland, uninteresting
way points for Roy (Pitt) and his journey further out of the solar
system and many attempts to make the settings more interesting (Moon
Pirates?) are either too ridiculous to acknowledge or too nihilistic
(what country capable of putting a base on the Moon would actually
need to harbor Space Pirates?) to be entertaining. So, you know, more
like Interstellar.
As for
watching it, good luck finding anything else out this weekend. I
heard Rambo came out and, if you want to anger people who like to
attribute movies to real-life violence, you could always go see a
70-year-old Vietnam veteran fight a drug cartel. Or, if you're one of
the ten non-critic people on the planet that actually watches PBS,
you could go see all the actors get stuffy about simplistic things on
Downtown Abbey. Sorry but, with competition like this, Sad Spaceman
seems to the most entertaining bet.
James
Gray (The Lost City of Z) continues to make heady, mostly lackluster
movies with Ad Astra, a too-smart-for-its-own-good, family drama in
space that could serve as a running headshot for Brad Pitt. After
discovering that his hero astronaut father might still be alive and
releasing a space pulse from his last known location at Neptune, Roy
McBride (Pitt) agrees to a mission through human space civilizations
in an attempt to contact him all the while lamenting how his own
ambitions about space travel have doomed his more Earthly
relationship with his estranged wife. Big name actors (Donald
Sutherland, Tommy Lee Jones) will pop in and out repeatedly, the
extent of secrecy around Roy's mission will be so easily compromised
it will be ridiculous and we will somehow be able to travel to
Neptune within six months without the use of sub-light travel. It's
too dark for sci-fi fans and too sci-fi for drama fans. Good luck
with that.
My
score: 5/10. Is it weird I was really wanting the sci-fi movie to
end with the astronaut going home and reconciling with his wife? Is
that even considered a climax in this kind of thing?
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