Review #17: Ad Astra
If Humanity Reached Out for E.T.
“He’d captured strange and distant worlds in greater detail than ever before. They were beautiful, magnificent — full of awe and wonder. But beneath their sublime surfaces, there was nothing. No love or hate. No light or dark. He could only see what was not there, and missed what was right in front of him.” -Roy McBride
Synopsis
When mysterious pulses of energy begin emanating from Neptune and threatening humanity’s hopes for contacting aliens, Brad Pitt must play Roy McBride, a soul-hardened astronaut who stands as humanity’s final hope of survival. Roy is the son of Clifford McBride, the pioneer of Earth’s very first manned mission to the outer solar system, which went inexplicably missing years ago in its quest to contact alien life. Earth’s “Space Command” (Space Force? Is that you?) believes that the pulses are a result of Clifford’s missing ship, and asks Roy to make a trip to Mars to send a communication to his father because all other attempts at communication have met silence. If he fails to make contact, Space Command fears the pulses will continue to grow in energy until they DeStRoY tHe EaRtH. After fending off space pirates, space baboons, and more space pulses, Roy finally arrives on Mars to contact his father.
He is able to elicit a response from his dad, but Space Command elects to send Roy back to Earth due to his emotional closeness to the mission. After learning that Space Command’s retrieval mission of his father is actually a seek-and-destroy mission, Roy sneaks onto the Martian rocket bound for Neptune and makes quick work of accidentally and conveniently killing all the other crew members on board. In isolation, he flies towards Neptune for 69 days (lol). Upon arrival, he boards his father’s ship with the nuke, and talks to his dad about what happened. The ship is malfunctioning, but Clifford is still determined to complete his mission. Realizing that his dad is basically nuts, he suits him up for a spacewalk back to his ship to bring him home, then arms the nuke to destroy his dad’s ship. Clifford doesn’t want to go back to Earth though, so he spacewalks himself right outta there while Roy makes a daring trek back to his ship through Neptune’s rings in just a spacesuit using a metal panel as protection. With the force of the nuclear blast, Roy flies his ship back to Earth with all of his father’s mission data on board.
Review
Brad Pitt presents: A Brad Pitt production. Starring Brad Pitt. Featuring a special appearance by… Brad Pitt! And what a ride it is. Ad Astra may steal a couple of sci-fi tropes from other great films, but director Brad Pi — I mean James Gray also incorporates some very original settings never before tackled by big budget Hollywood sci-fi! In the opening scene we see the “International Space Antenna”, which is essentially Hollywood’s freshman space elevator, climbing up from the Earth’s surface to high above the atmosphere in a gorgeous delta structure. Later, as Space Command is giving Roy the go-around about making a trip to *scoff* Mars, we hear that the energy pulses are emanating from Neptune, probably the least used planet in all of science fiction barring Uranus… and I think we all know why that is. The renderings of Neptune in the final act of the film are both breathtaking and incredibly realistic, and serve as a unique addition to this films repertoire of settings. Sufficed to say, it’s nice to see Mars used in a sci-fi as an interplanetary layover destination rather than the focal point of the entire setting. We’ve all seen enough of Mars.
Pitt’s portrayal of Roy is incredibly realistic, and for some, may prove to be unsettlingly relatable. Due to his father’s abandonment of him and his mother, Roy is an emotionless husk of a man, unable to provide comfort or solace to even his closest loved ones. His entire existence is instead dedicated to his missions for Space Command at the cost of everything else. From watching him hear the news that his father may still be alive until their final epic confrontation, the audience is able to witness Roy’s deeply sealed emotions exposed and released, and it’s an understatement to say that this transformation is powerful. This character arc is bolstered by the film’s use of narration, which is executed fluidly, and seldom feels out of place. This narration allows the audience an inside view at Roy’s thoughts as the story progresses, and I think it adds a lot to his character.
While Ad Astra certainly does deliver some unique settings and a resonant plot, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing from this film. I got this inkling the first time I watched it, and thought that maybe it was a fluke, so I watched it again just to be sure. The inkling remained. I still can’t pin exactly what it is, but I wonder if it has something to do with the somewhat forced nature of the plot. Right from the beginning, the audience knows the entire adventure that lies ahead: going to Mars to send a transmission, and then probably onto Neptune to find his dad. This leaves the remainder of the plot to everything that happens in between. The writers are forced to micromanage the story line to ensure that all of this happens, and I guess it feels like some of the magic and wonder of the setting becomes lost along the way. It’s hard to describe, but it’s a gut feeling that I stand by.
Director James Gray is quoted as saying that his intention with Ad Astra was to provide his audience with “the most realistic depiction of space travel that has been put into a movie.” While I am normally lenient on real science in my sci-fi movie reviews, Gray brought it up, so I won’t let it slide! The film does enjoy a bountiful collection of realistic depictions of space travel technology, spacecraft and facility design, and the laws of physics in general. There is, however, also a number of scientific fallacies that should be accounted for. Starting right from the top, the energy pulses emanating from Neptune are getting, quote, “stronger as they radiate”. That’s literally the opposite of the definition of the word “radiate”, and in fact makes no sense. Power naturally dissipates inversely proportionally to the distance from the source squared, meaning that the energy pulses being caused by Clifford’s malfunctioning antimatter power plant would need to be on the order of an exploding planet to have any effect on planet Earth. Furthermore, Newton’s laws of motion are also constantly bypassed for the sake of the plot during the acceleration of spacecraft in this film. These science no-no’s by no means impede the effectiveness of the plot, but they are noteworthy, Mr. Gray. They are noteworthy.
Some plot holes: What is fueling humanity’s desire to contact aliens? Unless there were some sign that life did indeed exist somewhere else, what is to drive humanity to create a friggin 200 mile high space antenna to try to phone E.T.? Also, his dad says “I never cared about you or your mother” when Roy encounters him on his ship, but then why does he reply to his communication from Mars in the first place? His father never has achieves a character arc or change of heart before he floats off to oblivian, so what gives? Also, it was quite apparent that the writers wanted Roy to meet with his dad alone, and were willing to kill any characters that stood in the way of that goal. Finally, what the actual f**k are killer space baboons doing on board a NORWEGIAN spacecraft?!?! Is that where baboons come from in the future?? I rest my case.
Conclusion
Thank you, Brad Pitt, for delivering a creative, original hard sci-fi film in 2019 amidst a sea of remakes, reboots, and sequels. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But Ad Astra still delivers a creative and thought provoking enough depiction of the near future of humanity that stands as a fine addition to its genre.
