Ad Astra (2019)

[baumer]

Discuss

[CoolioD1]

Friendship ended with Stanley Kubrick. Now James Gray is my best friend.

[TMP]

The voice-over stuff gave me Blade Runner Theatrical cut flashbacks, but the rest of it worked incredibly well for me. This exploration of male emotional repressment hit a lot harder than I was expecting and Pitt felt incredibly nuanced in his portrayal. Probably need to think on it a bit more

[Avatree]

16 hours ago, TMP said:

The voice-over stuff gave me Blade Runner Theatrical cut flashbacks, but the rest of it worked incredibly well for me. This exploration of male emotional repressment hit a lot harder than I was expecting and Pitt felt incredibly nuanced in his portrayal. Probably need to think on it a bit more

Reminded me more of Apocalypse Now. (Along with all the other hundred million things in this that reminded me of that film)

[The Panda]

Brilliant movie.

 

Rad Astra

[Alpha]

I feel like it left my audience cold (one guy booed when the end credits rolled) but I dug it. Only big complaint is that the scene with the killer space baboon seemed like something from a different movie.

 

Also I can’t want to eat Subway at the airport on the Moon after spending $125 on a blanket. The future is gonna be awesome!

 

A-

Edited September 21, 2019 by Alpha

[RichWS]

One day when I'm rich, I will recreate the Mars recording booth in my big house.

[filmlover]

I'm always down for a brainy sci-fi movie and I thought this was a rather terrific addition to the genre. In a way it feels like James Gray is further exploring the "into the unknown" themes of his previous movie, The Lost City of Z, within the cosmic realms but I think the results here are quite a bit more compelling. I also didn't expect to connect with this on a personal level as much as I did, and the whole thing is impeccably made (and very much worth seeking out on a giant screen, which is how I saw it). Elevating the movie to a higher level is a soulful, remarkable performance from Brad Pitt that makes for a great companion piece to his performance in Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood in reminding everyone just how much range he has as an actor. This probably won't be everyone's cup of tea considering it lacks the basic thrills we usually find from the genre but this is an absolutely must-see for anyone who values an intellectually engaging slice of science fiction. A-

[MrPink]

So am I blind, who did Jamie Kennedy play in Ad Astra

[filmlover]

22 hours ago, MrPink said:

So am I blind, who did Jamie Kennedy play in Ad Astra

Might've been one of the crew that tried to capture Pitt and was killed.

[MOVIEGUY]

This was an interesting one. I've been thinking about it a bit since I watched it last week, and the more I think about it the more I think I like it. Because I'll be honest, it tested my patience. I try having a good attention span with these kinda movies but I did a fair amount of boredom-squirming in my seat. But like I said, it stuck with me. And what I really liked was it feels like a truly epic journey. That's what I liked most about The Lost City of Z as well (which I liked better overall, more entertaining and I got onboard with it much quicker). I didn't have any problem with the gaps of logic that I've seen others bring up, because they add to the surreal and dreamlike nature of the adventure. Same with the killer baboon, it was another bizarre event in a series of them that helped make the journey feel epic. I thought it was a great scene to have in the movie.

 

The voiceover was a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes I thought it worked perfectly and helped me understand Pitt's character, other times it made the movie feel more dragass (and pretentious). We get it Apocalypse Now, you're losing your marbles will you get to Tommy Lee Jones already? 

 

Anyways I want to watch it again, which is about as good praise I can give to a movie I was initially iffy on.

Edited September 27, 2019 by MOVIEGUY

[titanic2187]

First half was terrific , 2nd half was dull

 

Gravity(10) > Interstellar (8) .> Martian (7) > Ad astra (7) .> first man (6.5)  

[Kravetz]

Yes the film was rich and the character portrayed by Brad Pitt was nuanced and worthy of recognition, but that couldn't save me from focus on the many glaring issues with this film.

 

First we had a gratuitous action scene with shooting in space chasing each other with dune buggies. It was big in the previews, un necessary in the film, and poorly executed. It did tell us that comandos can't see the enemy approaching in the future, Astronaut and science geeks can still shoot and drive best to save the day, And when the whole world is in peril, we still fight each other ad nauseam. 

 

From that scene and throughout the film, space suits are apparently supersuits. They never run out of air, and even when punctured, all you need to do is hold the tear tight with your hand and then it is fixed. He even lets go of the tear and walks safely into the base. I guess duck tape (not seen) does have more uses than Nasa imagined. 

 

Now the premise I caught from the previews was an estranged father's experiments now threaten humanity. Turns out he is as estranged as ever, cooperative as ever, tried but failed to save us, and the son, talked to, forgave, and gave himself 3 hours to get out. Meanwhile blasts from Neptune continually bombard Mars,Moon, and Earth and they are unaffected right there. 

 

And with no discussion about food reserves, air reserves, and fuel, I guess we can ride the nuclear detonation all the way back. It took him 71 days to get there, yet he is the only one who remains clean shaven during the affair. Everyone other big name, Donald and Tommy Lee go beard. With all the phych. evaluations  I wonder why they get razers.

 

And they jettison bodies so their families can not have a proper burial, yet our protagonist hopes to be retrieved some day. 

 

and all they found in space is that we are alone? That is almost as anticlimatic an ending as Contact. Give me an alien baboon, anything. I was led to believe this film was going to be an action film. 

 

Now the idea of prying off a door in zero g to jump off and still get through the asteroid belt unscathed is what scifi is all about. suspending disbelief. Like when he fell off an orbiting satellite and stayed conscious and survived re entry. I knew from the beginning I would hate it and I was right.

 

don't give me a sequel with baboons and Donalds estranged daughter. 

 

[nghtvsn]

AD ASTRA 

 

I had some interest, not a lot though in watching it. Only chose to see it because a friend wanted to go and he brought two others. Breaking it down, my friend thought it was worth a once view, his brother thought it a bore and the last guy actually fell asleep. Yes it was a late showing but still. Myself, I thought it was okay, it kept my attention. Those of us who were awake all agreed to some degree that it had interesting music and some nice visuals. I enjoyed it the most and thought the space visuals were excellent. I can't ever get enough of planetary views of Mars, Jupiter and the moon. The moon sequence was exciting and his escape from Mars as well. I thought Pitt was good in the film and it's his film. He didn't bore me. In the end though it becomes disappointing with the ending. Maybe it's believable that after all those years in space his father really found nothing but with the technology they had when it only takes 80 days to get to Neptune I don't believe he would have found absolutely nothing (besides nice pictures of various planets) but that's the film's message to me. Whatever. 

 

Grade - B

 

 

 

[Barnack]

Went in theater tired after a long bike ride during the day, had to fight falling asleep, much prefered lost City of Z, but could have been the watching situation.

 

The fight with the monkeys (was that a studio request for action's ?) and all those secondary character handling felt a bit weak, much more loved Interstellar.

 

On 9/28/2019 at 8:37 PM, Kravetz said:

Everyone other big name, Donald and Tommy Lee go beard. With all the phych. evaluations  I wonder why they get razers.

 

He is ex-military (and somewhat still in it ?), if it is still like today it can be used to crazy strict shaving regiment, in Irak/Afghan soldier that got in attack surprise and have to stay 3-4 days on the field unexpectedly could get a lot of flack when they came back to the base unchave and got to habit to have a emergency blade at all time on them, the good hair cut was even stranger imo, but who know what future phone will be able to do.

 

On 9/28/2019 at 8:37 PM, Kravetz said:

And with no discussion about food reserves, air reserves, and fuel, I guess we can ride the nuclear detonation all the way back. It took him 71 days to get there

The missions was always to reach that destination and for more passenger, why would those be an issue ?

 

From what I understand 3 days or 100 days travel probably change little fuel wise, once you have a certain speed you do not loose it in speed except if you get slowed by strong gravitational field.

Edited October 16, 2019 by Barnack

[IndustriousAngel]

8/10, A-

 

fine piece of solar-system SF (there's too few of them) with a nice story and theme. The one drawback were some impossible (and completely unnecessary) stunts at the end while most other times, the science aspect stayed pretty realistic.

[DeeCee]

There wasn’t really any realistic science in this. 

[kitik]

Apocalypse Now In Space made no sense whatsover.

 

My friend speculated that perhaps at one point there was a longer 3 and a half hour cut of the movie that made more sense and explained more and set the character up more. 

 

On 1/16/2020 at 3:26 PM, IndustriousAngel said:

the science aspect stayed pretty realistic.

 

Perhaps you meant to post this in the thread for The Expanse.

Ad Astra didn't even come remotely close to offering a realistic or logical look at the future or at science.

[DeeCee]

Here we go.  

 

"The real reason the towers are there is so that Brad Pitt can fall off of one of them." 

[Rorschach]

Meh.

 

C