Film Review - Ad Astra (12A)

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.

(Sorry, Brad - I loved you in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood)

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.

Film Review - First Man (12A)

Has anybody got a Swiss Army knife?

Neil Armstrong's 1969 moonwalk is such a celebrated part of modern history that we tend to view it as having been inevitable. There's a clearer sense of drama in the disastrous Apollo 13 mission than in the moondust-stirring success of 11, which is presumably why the former was celebrated in cinema screen twenty-three years before Armstrong's 'giant leap for mankind'. And yet the logistics of Sixties NASA landing a manned craft on the lunar surface were so precarious that viewed correctly the event seems truly miraculous. Director Damien Chazelle gets that - only one of the reasons why his film First Man is such a magnificent experience.

Based on James R. Hansen's Armstrong biography, the movie has a much broader scope than Apollo 11, charting as it does the NASA space program from the early Sixties through the eyes of its brooding protagonist. Armstrong was recruited from the US Air Force's human spaceflight program (a terrifying adventure in its own right) and trained in the NASA Astronaut Corps for almost a decade, surviving more than one brush with death prior to his 'one small step'. He also - along with his wife - absorbed personal tragedy, an element woven tightly into the fabric of the story here. First Man tells of colossal scientific achievements, but never loses the intimate connection with its central character.

Director Chazelle has already matched ambition with talent in films such as Whiplash and last year's Oscar-baiting La La Land, but here he surpasses both (to my mind) with something truly colossal. So much in First Man is beautifully judged, like the grainy look of its earthbound scenes, reminiscent of the era's colour news footage. The film is steeped in period detail, often with a convincing documentary feel - that's until we break through into space and IMAX high-definition steals our breath, restoring a sense of wonder that the moon-landing happened at all. There's a ramshackle nuts-and-bolts quality to how space travel is portrayed here, much of it putting us in Armstrong's gravity boots, while his tin-can vessel screeches and rattles like it's about to break apart. Nothing is sleek about these rocket missions - they're experiences in raw terror and desperate seat-of-the-pants ingenuity.

The movie is thoughtful and melancholy as well as dynamic, courtesy of screen writer Josh Singer (The Post, Spotlight, countless West Wing episodes), while Justin Hurwitz's graceful, theremin-tinged score underpins the drama perfectly. Lead actors Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy are both an understated kind of excellent. Gosling's Armstrong is strong and silent to a fault - a focused, driven man who buries all his negative emotions deep. It's to the actor's credit that we sense those feelings burning there as he takes a devastating phone-call or straps himself in for a dicey rocket-trip. Foy meanwhile embodies the stoic astronaut's wife - keeping the family together and giving vent when necessary to the fears and frustrations building up beneath. The subtlety of their scenes together is fascinating, the moments where she cuts loose with emotion a blessed relief. 

The cast is filled out too with great character turns - Kyle Chandler as businesslike Apollo mission chief Deke Slayton, Jason Clarke as Armstrong's empathetic friend and fellow-astronaut Ed White and Corey Stoll as the outspoken 'Second Man' Buzz Aldrin. They bring a striking authenticity to it all - the sense of purpose, the calm under pressure and the sublimated fear of disaster. (Occasionally those worst fears are terribly realised.)

First Man shies from little. It tangles with the politics surrounding manned space flight, questions the ethics of pursuing such dangerous goals and exposes these pioneers' fallibility. But it also recaptures a sense of wonder at events rendered safely familiar by crackly news footage (particularly for those of us too young to remember when they actually happened). The depiction of that first moon mission is as beautiful and awe-inspiring as anything in science-fiction. Forget that manufactured controversy over whether or not we see the US flag being planted. This is about a moment that captured the global imagination and the enigmatic man who took that legendary first step.   

Gut Reaction: Engrossed - and then absorbed - and then just overawed. I actively moment-to-moment loved this.

Where Are the Women?: Sixties NASA was male-fronted (watch Hidden Figures to see the crucial role played by the girls). Claire Foy has room to be terrific, however, in what goes way beyond the old-style wife-girlfriend role.

Ed's Verdict: 9.5/10. I'm going to write a feature soon on what constitutes a Filmic Forays 10/10 - but I'm pretty sure it's this plus reflection-time. To everyone's taste? I'm guessing not. But for me every frame became a joy in this stratosphere-busting film achievement. Bravo.