Ad Astra

The answers we seek are just outside our reach
The answers we seek are just outside our reach

AD ASTRA (12)

D: James Gray

20th Century Fox/Regency/Bona Fide/New Regency/Plan B/RT/Keep Your Head/Mad River (Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, James Gray, Anthony Katagas, Rodrigo Teixeira & Arnon Milchan)

USA 🇺🇸 2019

124 mins


Science Fiction/Adventure


W: James Gray & Ethan Gross

DP: Hoyte van Hoytema

Ed: John Axelrad & Lee Haugen

Mus: Max Richter

PD: Kevin Thompson


Brad Pitt (Maj. Roy McBride), Tommy Lee Jones (Clifford McBride), Ruth Negga (Helen Lantos), Liv Tyler (Eve McBride), Donald Sutherland (Col. Pruitt)


*MINOR SPOILERS*

I would recommend watching the film before reading anything about it, as I went in to the movie absolutely blind and possibly enjoyed it a whole lot more as a result...

Gravity meets Contact in this gripping science fiction adventure set in the near future, starring Brad Pitt as a decorated astronaut tasked with a top secret mission that takes him to the outer reaches of the solar system.

Pitt plays Major Roy McBride, the son of highly respected scientist Clifford McBride, whose experiments to find life on other planets, conducted from just outside Neptune's orbit have inadvertently caused a chain reaction that threatens the future of the human race. With contact broken for over 30 years, Pitt is assigned to Mars, in an attempt to re-establish communication with his rogue father, but the mission is plagued on the entire journey by cosmic anomalies, conspiracies and even physical conflict.

The pay off doesn't quite match the build up, but if you consider this Freudian high-tech thriller as a science fiction version of Apocalypse Now, it might make a little more sense. 

Visually stunning, with production values that convince throughout that we're following Brad Pitt along this journey into the great unknown. It also has to be said that Pitt's performance is phenomenal, carrying the entire movie, in which he appears in virtually every single scene.

The title is taken from Latin, meaning "to the stars".

8/10


Brad Pitt in Ad Astra
Brad Pitt in Ad Astra
Did You Know:
Director James Gray admitted to Empire magazine that he had to compromise with the studio on the ending of the movie to get the film green-lit and even with a major star/producer like Brad Pitt on board they still struggled for years to get it made.