What did he find out there in the abyss?
I love a good grown-up space drama. I mean either the type that tells of real-life adventures (Apollo 13, last year's First Man) or that projects realistically into the future (2001: A Space Odyssey, The Martian, the first 90 minutes of Interstellar). The publicity for Ad Astra has 'mind-blowing existential space epic' written all over it and I was ready for the film to enter my personal pantheon of great astro-flicks. Nor did this original story fall short of asking big questions about humanity's place in a vast universe and in certain ways it's a genuinely impressive piece of work. But for much of its running time it also threatened to put me to sleep.
Brad Pitt plays Roy McBride, a seasoned astronaut who lives in the shadow cast by his legendary space-travelling father. When a freak cosmic power surge causes widespread damage on Earth, McBride is called in by a desperate NASA. The anomaly, he is told, was due to an anti-matter burst that could only have been caused by the technology used by his father on a mission to Neptune thirty years before. The dad who Roy thought long since dead may be alive after all and risking all life in pursuit of his mission goals. McBride Jnr sets out on a mission of his own that will take him to the further reaches of the solar system, as - very possibly - the final hope for humankind.
That in itself sounds exciting and involving, and there's much here that should thrill. Co-writer/director James Gray is, after all, the man who brought us 2016's The Lost City of Z, an understated but profound story of real-life explorer Percy Fawcett. This time the voyage has even greater profundity (never mind that it's fictional), and an accompanying sense of grandeur. An early set-piece is truly spectacular and reminiscent of Gravity in its breaktaking sense of realism. There are further startling bursts of action too, punctuating the solemn journey into the void to sometimes shocking effect. And the experience of (not-too-distant) future space travel is realised with clever and convincing attention to detail, along with a sense of how our relentlessly capitalist instincts might soon pollute our cosmic neighbourhood the way they've done the planet. Did I mention that it's all gloriously shot? No? Well it is.
All of which has me wondering why I didn't like the film more than I did, while some critics are labelling it a five-star wonder.
It's chiefly due, I think, to the sense of deadness that exists between the narrative's occasional flurries of madness. McBride is one hell of an introverted character, never threatening to connect with any of the supporting characters he meets along the way (one of whom is all-too-briefly portrayed by the great Donald Sutherland). That alienation I might have coped with, if not for the interminable inner-monologue that Pitt supplies. I was initially intrigued by his journey - outer and inner - but the voice-over's droning dullness along with a turgid score was cumulative like space debris clogging up my brain. Halfway through I was struggling on the verge of oblivion, while still vaguely thinking that I should be more interested, not least by the prospect of a father/son reunion, with Daddy McBride played in various bits of footage by Tommy Lee Jones. By the final act some seriously deep questions were being asked about our place in the universe, but the only one of any real interest was when I'd get to go home to bed. Seriously, it was tough going.
It's odd that last year I watched First Man - another film about a taciturn astronaut as much focused on his own inner space as on the outer kind - and found every second enthralling. That one moved and inspired me, while Brad's odyssey reduced me to said stupor. It's possible that my end-of-week brain was too fatigued to engage with anything cerebral, in which case I'd need to watch it again - heavens help me - on Blu ray. But for now my take is a disappointed one. Ad Astra didn't take me to the stars - it left me struggling for consciousness in the deadening void of space.
Gut Reaction: My hand went to my face twice - once at a awe-inspiring opening sequence and once again at how painfully slow it all became.
Memorable Moment: Encounter with some unlikely space survivors. (That bit woke me up.)
Ed's Verdict: 5/10. So much is praiseworthy here on a technical level and on one of ideas. But I still found it massively boring.
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