Oh damn it’s my 150th post, Didn’t see that coming, but anyway enjoy the review.
Ad Astra is a new movie that just came out and it’s unique, to say the least. It’s about time, as I was getting a bit tired of watching the same old desperate cash grabs.
The plot for this movie is kind of like last year’s Annihilation where an unknown space source is killing people and endangering the entire planet. It’s up to Natalie Portman, or in this case Brad Pitt, to find the source. The search is thought provoking and smartly written. It isn’t as good as Annihilation but I still found it quite an interesting watch.
I guess the most appealing part of this film is how Ad Astra continues the stunningly gorgeous look and feel that was captured so well in Gravity and First Man. In this film we travel across our own solar system in a world where Flying High 2’s commercial space travel is possible. The different planets are very unique from one another and all have their own visual flair. The Moon is a grey dust rock overshadowed in darkness while Mars is an orangey dusty place covered in bright red flairs.
The movie is pretty grim as Roy McBride is quite a sad guy, living with hardships and trapped in the shadow of his legendary father and the secretive government that he works for. We learn a fair amount about this missing dad and miserable son and I like how their relationship ties back into the core themes behind this movie as McBride is emotionally detached and there’s the massive burden that the people he works for drill into his brain. The question of what’s the point of doing is constantly raised. It’s a heavy movie and Brad Pitt absolutely nails what’s going on in his character’s head.
Though, despite my praises, I do have some negatives. For one it was quite boring in certain parts. I did like the slowish crawl, but sometimes it stretched out a bit. Some scenes I found quite bad especially the one that featured that stupid CG baboon. Sometimes it was a little in your face with the obvious set-ups and the narration. Maybe it’s just me but some of the concepts introduced in this movie I found a bit silly, for example, space pirates on the moon. If mankind ever colonises on The Moon maybe space pirates won’t sound too much of a stretch, but for now I felt it was a bit dumb.
I’m surprised this even came to the cinema as well-crafted and thought provoking movies like this are normally booted to Netflix or Amazon Prime. Overall I found this is a good movie and I’m giving it an 8 out of 10. If this interests you in any way then I give it my thumbs up approval. I’m out of things to say so if you enjoyed this short post like, share, comment, whatever and I have been The Blog Complainer, signing out.
