Since joining the Slingshot Aerospace empire we at Seradata have become more used to its salute/entreaty: “Ad Astra!”. So it seemed only right that, having missed it during the pandemic, we belatedly review the space exploration set movie under that name.
There have been a recent spate of space movies that have been both exciting and thought provoking – albeit sometimes playing fast and loose with what is actually realistic in terms of technology or plot. For example, the in-space disaster movie Gravity (2013) had some very visible space debris which, in reality, would be too fast to see. The very entertaining Interstellar (2014) had a barely believable start involving NASA working as an underground agency with its secretly stashed Saturn V launch vehicle. Meanwhile, The Martian (2015) managed some very unlikely ways to steer a space suit and grab a rocket ride (more of that later). So what “iffy” elements were in Ad Astra? We shall see.
Ad Astra (2019) is directed by James Gray and starts off with Brad Pitt as an world weary, but experienced, astronaut Major Roy McBride (in truth the-now-well-into-his-50s Pitt looks too old to be just a Major) who had followed in his famous spacefaring father’s footsteps into the astronaut corps – a father who had been missing for decades. Spaceflight is now run by the quasi-military “Space Command” – a sort of combination of the US Space Force and NASA with a space infrastructure running to the Moon and onto Mars.
Lunar rovers on the Moon but watch out for the pirates in Ad Astra (2019). Courtesy: Regency Enterprises/20th Century Fox
Ad Astra’s plot begins with the world being affected by electrostatic storms and power surges which appear to have an interplanetary source. Is there an evil Emperor Ming out there? Or is it actually the lost Project Lima mission’s “anti-matter” engine that is the cause?
The latter’s lost space expedition to the outer solar system was commanded by our hero’s dad, Colonel H. Clifford McBride (played by Tommy Lee Jones), who just might have gone off the rails as he obsesses about extra-terrestrial life. And so Pitt’s character is summoned to make a journey via the Moon and onto Mars in order to contact him in a surreptitious way. On his space odyssey, and narrating his woes in first person, he has to fight various hazards ranging from Moon rover pirates, bio hazards aboard a stranded cargo vessel, to periodically passing his computerised psycho-reviews. Along the way we view our pained hero’s past – including a brief view of Liv Tyler as his long suffering girlfriend – though she does not get a word in. And we meet his father’s astronaut old-time buddy, played by Donald Sutherland.
As this writer and some other critics have noticed, the storyline is reminiscent of Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam war movie masterpiece Apocalypse Now (1979). Based on Conrad’s (the author Joseph’s, not astronaut Pete’s) Heart of Darkness, it has a US Army officer played by Martin Sheen – speaking similarly in a first person narrative – being sent up river to find and terminate “with extreme prejudice” a US Colonel (played by Marlon Brando) who, after a brilliant career, has apparently gone rogue/native/nuts.
So does our man on Mars, on the Moon, and in outer space similarly get this space rogue male who just happens to be his dad? Well you will have to watch the film to find that out.
This enjoyable adventure it has lots of beautiful visual elements, some obviously influenced by Stanley Kubric’s Space 2001 – a Space Odyssey (1968). It also has lots of tension and excitement, plus a few psychological questions that need to be answered on its way. Yes – there are a few parts that space cadets will wince at, including, what appears (spoiler alert) to be a very long range navigation between far flung space ships using just a space suit, batting off Neptune ring debris as you go.
So what about the ending? Well, your could say it turned out as “The horror! The horror!” but actually it is more boring than that. Apologies for yet another reference to Francis Ford Coppola’s film – but, just like that marvellous jungle adventure, the horror is that this otherwise excellent film’s denouement is also a bit of a let down. However, at least an apocalypse now on Earth might just have been averted.
Seradata Rating: Ad Astra’s journey to the stars – or to the outer planets at least – starts off strongly but just as it looks like it will reach an 8 or 9, its counts back down to a 7 out of 10. For while Interstellar (2014) got better as it went on, so this one does the opposite. Thus, not quite an “Interstellar” score but the music’s okay. And this film does has some bits you will want to return to again and again – that thrilling Moon-buggy battle ride for instance.
