Dir: James Gray, 2019

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Brad Pitt
Tommy Lee Jones
Ruth Negga
Liv Tyler

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Roy McBride (Pitt) is sent on a classified mission to help recover what is left of the Lima Project, an expedition that was led by his father 30 years previous. In a story of exploration and understanding, Brad Pitt delivers a powerful performance of a character steeped in regret and pain.

Ad Astra builds in all the right places and paces itself so perfectly that you are left mesmerised for the entirety.

The whole plot kept me on the edge of my seat, I had no clue where it was going and how it was going to unfold, I couldn’t even work out how the final scene was going to tie up.

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I was disappointed with how they used Eve (Tyler) in the plot, she seemed almost pointless. It felt like she was crowbarred in to give McBride an incentive for his mission but really his motivation of overcoming his previous trauma in relation to his father would have been enough. She was in about 2 scenes, must have only have about 3 or 4 minutes screen time and for what? It seemed like a waste. They may as well have given him a puppy he needed to get back to and gone all John Wick on the situation.

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There wasn’t one single flaw in the production design, the entire film was utterly stunning. There were moments whilst watching it that I found myself with my mouth wide open in complete awe of the images I was looking at. The colouring was outstanding, I loved the use of red on Mars (even if this may have seemed and obvious choice, it came across as cleverly ambiguous). I was completely captivated by the use of black and white on the moon surface, it was such a clever and daring move.

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The swooping space walk shots did make my head spin a bit, nothing to the extent of Gravity (that was so bad that I had to leave the cinema), but there were a couple of moments I had to look at the floor to regain my bearings.

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Using a full length voice over was a clever move, it gave us a sense of personality to Roy and gave us a chance to get to know him when his character didn’t have a lot to say in person.

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I stand by what I have always said about Pitt, he is a powerhouse. He was swept up in the 90’s as a heartthrob that people forgot that he is one of the most talented actors in Hollywood. I’m so happy to see him getting challenging roles and carrying a film of this magnitude is so exciting for me to see.

 

I would 100% see it again, I’d probably go tomorrow given the chance.