[Sci Fi] Ad Astra

Spoiler

I understood the surge was TLJ using the anti-matter to send out signals in search of intelligent life. The crew had enough and wanted to return home, but TLJ went crazy and thought it was his destiny to find ETs. I don't think they were aware the surges were creating enough energy to knock out power as it amplified towards Earth.

 

Spoiler

Couldn't they just communicate the issue with TLJ when they contacted him from Mars? Didn't Brad Pitt talk to him

 

Spoiler

TLJ went rogue and was ignoring space command. He didn't care what happened to Earth. He was focused on finding ETs.

 

And Liv Tyler. Don't forget Liv Tyler.

 

Ugh. 3.5/10 for this turkey.

Four of us went and we were all super disappointed, even in IMAX.

Ranty reviewy:

Spoiler

Wow. As science fiction, you can go a number of ways: heavy on scientific realism, heavy on action, heavy on humor even (Ragnarok was amazing in this way), or even a little mix. What Ad Asstra does is present itself as a hyper-realistic space opus that is a very serious and philosophical character study. But it does none of that. They either hired zero scientific/aerospace consultants OR ignored those consultants. There are serious mistakes in each and every space travel scene, to the point of the ludicrous ending of launching oneself through Neptune's rings (which are not nearly that dense, btw) and then using a nuclear blast, in space to propel a ship back towards Earth. I mean, not even Star Trek would ever try such idiocy, nevermind a truly realistic film like 2001.

But I am totally fine screwing up the science if you do anything else well. But the writing is really bad. I kept wanting to like it, but it was like 1980's psycho-babble and voiceover and mounds of cliches surrounding by long, silent scenes of Brad Pitt's face. Yes, I paid IMAX prices to see 25-foot pictures of Brad Pitt in various stages of stubble and confusion.

The writing is so bad, and the writer(s) had/have so much trouble with dialogue, that at one point the script decides to just kill a whole space ship crew just to avoid the months of dialogue on the way to Neptune. One woman slams into a window. Oops. Some other guy is mistakenly killed grappling with Brad Pitt (?), and the third guy just chokes to death on something? It was like slapstick space comedy but played seriously.

Two things I did like:
* the sequence of the space antenna damage, with Pitt falling and tumbling. So beautifully handled, and I had high hopes at that point.
* the mysterious woman on Mars. She at least was an interesting human being for her brief time on screen, even though her mix of not having access to top-level secrecy but then also ... having access to top-level secrecy, of course, made zero sense.

Finally, don't get me started on the useless action tangents. You can just see the producers checking in on the script and the early shooting. "Wait, what... no action? Just Brad Pitt thinking to himself, in a junky ship filled with 20th-century lab timers stuck to every surface? Jesus... Give me some space apes eating people! Give me space pirates! You gotta do something!"

I guess I'm just this salty b/c I was looking forward to this one for a while and had heard it really tried to create a serious space epic, an interesting universe, etc. Oh well.

 

Spoiler

I think that's correct, but overall in the discussion, y'all are giving the script too much credit when it comes to the mythical matter/anti-matter gizmo and the bursts threatening earth. TLJ mumbled something, in his pathetic ending appearance, where he was wearing slippers and shambling around Lima, that he was "trying to fix" the surges. He also said it was "damaged" when he was fighting with his crew. So the script literally suggests it was all just an accident and just happened to spit huge plumes of bad stuff at earth on occasion. Oh, okay. The script is just absolutely terrible. It makes me very sad.

 

And don't forget: when they were on the moon you couldn't see any stars. So were they really on the moon?

It did leave me wondering how long I could sit alone in a canister of compressed air without going crazy.

 

I’m with bob

SPOILERS***

Trailer made it seem like this exploration movie but quickly it turned into a personal story instead.

The movie could of easily been 30 minutes shorter without all the flashbacks, Pitt looking confused, excessive narration.

The father character didn’t really make sense.
Beautiful movie however!

 

It really is beautiful to look at (except for all the long close-ups). I really loved the Neptune sequence and the early sequence on the big tower antenna (which is in the trailer).

Good soundtrack too. They just needed to lose the voice-over narration and hire some real writers. They aren't that expensive (compared to the cast).

 

I wasn’t crazy about the voice over, just as I wasn’t crazy about how it was used in the original version of Blade Runner, forced on the production by the studio. It was way overused. The studio can’t be blamed for it’s use in Ad Astra. I’ll add that Pitt was very involved with the production.

He has a production company, Plan B, and has produced several successful films. I’m not sure how this one will do at the box office, though. I enjoyed it, but we spent a long time after seeing the flick talking about what we liked and didn’t like, and there was a lot of criticism thrown around.

Spoiler

I thought the anti-matter engine and it’s impact on the script had holes you could drive a truck through. I guess you weren’t supposed to think too much about it. They needed a huge crisis and dreamed one up. I didn’t buy it. Still enjoyed the film - I’m a sucker for this stuff and there was a lot to like, IMO.

 

You pretty much spot-on summed up my reaction to the movie.

Spoiler

Very frustrating how the movie portrays itself as a hard sci-fi flick with feelings, but clearly no one seriously thought through all the sci fi elements. They show this graphic early on that seems to indicate this anti-matter surge cloud that is threatening earth seemed to be basically aimed at Earth. Later on TLJ indicates he has been trying to fix it. Why not just rotate the ship such that this cloud is facing away? So many silly questions like this completely break this movie.

To me, I think the director saw Tree of Life and thought, "Oooh! That was interesting and different! I want to make THAT movie in SPACE!" All the Brad Pitt closeups, general demeanor and voice over completely reeked of Tree of Life.

Overall, it was Brad Pitt kind of wandering in and out of other, more interesting movies. I would have loved to have seen the movie that shows how Moon Pirates came to be. I would have LOVED to see a movie with crazy, genetically altered space monkeys who like to eat peoples' faces. The woman who was born on Mars and had only been to Earth once, whose parents were killed by TLJ. She was interesting. I wanted to know more about her. Hell, even the crazy-haired check-in girl at Mars seemed to have some life in her (the chick from Orange is the New Black). I wanted to see ANY of those movies over what I got.

By the end, even though it wouldn't have made any sense and would have felt more out of place than anything else the movie through in there, I really REALLY wanted to see Brad Pitt use that antenna cover as a SURF BOARD instead of a shield as he flies towards his ship. That would have been stupid and weird but at least it would have been interesting.

Not a fan of this movie.

 

I didn't mind the journey, but the ending fell way short.

Spoiler

"We're all we got". That was really it. The "surge" and ET was just a mcguffin.

 

That line is hauntingly beautiful, so simple yet perfectly encapsulates the film's message. Ultimately it's a film centered on human connection, and we see Brad Pitt journey to the ends of the solar system to find it.

Sure there's some plot holes and I wish we could have seen more from Liv Tyler and Donald Sutherland. And I'm curious what the film would have been like without so much narration, if any. But there's so many good moments, they easily trump the negative ones.

 

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie. I actually liked the narration against Pitt's robotic, quiet like calm but I wish we got to learn a little bit more about the world the movie took place in. You're absolutely right, this movie is about human connection but I was expecting a different angle.

 

More world building would have been helpful, agreed.

Spoiler

I liked very much the idea that a man searches for his long lost father as that father looks all over the universe and sees that the only life is back home on earth with his son. That could be amazing, with a little script work.

But it didn’t hold together for me, as presented. I’m glad others disagree b/c we all need moar Sci Fi epic attempts.

 

This movie was a wannabee Interstellar.

If you’re going to ignore the science, at least let it be interesting and let the writing be top notch.

6/10

Edit: will elaborate, ad astra had it’s fair amount of good scenes, fall off the tower, arrival on mars, fight for control of the ship, but it failed to make a connection with me because it portrayed a specific message all movie (determined abandoned son) but it ended with, we’re all we got, which speaks to me on a more of a general humanity sense, the “ex wife” story was a bit lazy and forced, as was the “your dad killed my fam”. In contrast to Interstellar, where it’s message was clear even after all the insanity of the science and effects, one never stops loving those close to you, even after those people aren’t consciously with us anymore, and that needs to mean something on the scientific level.

It’s not a bad movie, but based on it’s limited comparisons, it falls short to the comparisons available.

 

My $.02

Terrible. I mean, absolutely terrible. Was Brad Pitt good? I guess, assuming the director told him to be lifeless and morose.

Was it the MOST terrible movie ever? No, but it was dreadful.

Now I know I am saying it was awful, but you may ask - Why?

Well, mainly because of the mindlessly arbitrary necessary things which had to exist in the movie for the movie to exist at all.

Spoiler

#1 - The government/military/Space Agency HAD to be sinister and evil. Had to be. Why? So the mission could be undertaken in complete secrecy. Why? No reason, just cuz. To avoid panic? The world was already panicked. But it HAD to be in complete secrecy, so that they couldn't just fly to the deep space ship base on the moon, no they had to DRIVE there, so they could be attacked in a set-piece by the only appearance of vague 'space pirates' or whatever. Was it cool? Yeah, I mean, as far as I know, it was the only known filmed combination car-chase/gun-fight on the surface of the moon, so, ok, that was cool. But pointless.

#2 - Speaking of the moon - they were walking around normally in the moon base, with what was clearly earth-normal gravity. Ummm. How? Same thing on Mars. Not the same gravity, guys. Ehhh, nobody notices such things anyway, look! It's Brad Pitt!

#3 - Same reason for the 'mandatory' stop at Baboon Death Station - Brad COULD have ordered the ship to keep on its way to mars, but he would have had to 'reveal his mission' to the Captain, and even though the fate of literally the entire solar system hinged on the success of his mission, he refused to reveal it, and instead decided to space walk to 'Get your face eaten off research station' . Why? I guess so we could see a brief interlude about the dangers of animal research? I dunno. Again, utterly pointless.

#4 - All of the relentlessly tiring 'psychological review' scenes. Why? Well, so we can see how sinister and intrusive the government is, I guess.

#5 - Mars base. Peopled by... space bohemians? Maybe? And the chick from Preacher was.. the boss of the place? And who also has a ridiculously coincidental tie to Brad. And who helps him... sneak aboard the deep DEEP space ship heading to Neptune.. by.. swimming? And why does he have to sneak aboard? Because the sinister/evil gubmint agency decided to remove him from the mission. Why? Because he ad-libbed in a shot-in-the-dark message across the solar system to his maybe-possibly-still-alive father who is maybe-possibly-responsible for the 'waves of anti matter' (whatever that science-fictiony term means) blasting the earth? Ok...

#6 - So, Brad *sneaks aboard* the super duper top secrety secret deep deep space rocket mission to Neptune to nuke his father. And everyone else aboard the ship basically immediately kills themselves in an insane orgy of violence intended to be dealt upon Brad, but instead they just sort of Keystone-Cops themselves to death.

#7 - So now Brad continues to mission to go stop whatever is causing the anti-matter waves from Neptune. It's taken his father like 20 years to get out there, but Brad will float out there in... 79 days? Didn't these people watch The Martian? It took like a year just to get to Mars! But ok, Brad's ship is just really really fast. And of course he hallucinates emotionally the whole way.

#8 - So, bingo, Brad arrives at Neptune, and yeah, there's his father's expedition ship. So Brad parks on the wrong side of the rings of Neptune and has to fly the Galileo over to it. And since it's his only way BACK to his ship, he just.. lets the Galileo drift away. As though he figures it's a suicide mission anyway, I don't know. Obviously the reason is so he could figure out a clever way to launch himself back to his own ship after the deed is done, just like Sandra and Matt did in their movies at the ends.

#9 - So, he finds his way into the ship, and of course, Tommy Lee is in there, really old, and of course crazy, and all alone. And Brad had decided to kill his father because clearly his father had gone mad and murderous, but before he can even ask, Tommy Lee announces he has been trying to find a way to stop all those anti-matter blasts, because it was really the mutinous ex-crew who caused it.. somehow. And so brad decides to take his father back home, even though he is, at best, a complete a-hole who only had like two pages of dialog in the whole movie.

#10 - But Tommy ain't havin it, and decides to try to kill them both, but really just decides he wants to die of asphyxiation out in Neptune orbit, so Brad lets him go. And the suitcase nuke is about to go off in the ship, and Brad decides that it's important to take back all the data Tommy collected, so he uses the old 'Nuke-going-off-nearby-to-propel-your-spaceship-really-fast-through-space' method for returning home.. just like in Independence Day I guess.

#11 - And so brad comes home and is accepted with open arms again because he stopped all the anti-matter blasting, and he tells the camera he is happy and engaged and involved in the lives of people around him, and he is smiling. Even though he directly caused the deaths of three astronauts and was a wanted man, but oh well. He's Brad.

Honestly, I wanted to like it. The previews looked interesting to me. But no. This thing was childish, dumb, boring, and pointless.

2/10

 

Pretty much spot on....

 

I just want to say that this is the greatest movie review I've ever seen.

 

It was more entertaining than the movie, for me at least.

But I'll say, I would rather a somewhat braindead serious sci fi movie come to market than another braindead transformers or buddy cop movie. I mean, given the choice.