Ad Astra reviews

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Sabin
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Re: Ad Astra reviews

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gunnar wrote
I was looking forward to Ad Astra and saw it in the theater the first week it was out, but I left disappointed. The film was interesting at times, but I was really turned off by its glacial pace. I also seem to remember that the lighting didn't really work for me at times either. It's definitely not a film I have any interest in watching again, though perhaps I would appreciate it more on a second viewing.
Well, I envy you because you got to watch it on the big screen. This is clearly a film that warrants a big screen to maximize its visuals and perhaps its shortcomings.

Y'know... in the day or so since I saw Ad Astra, I've had a slight change of heart. I can't shake the suspicion that it just doesn't quite thread the needle between soulful and thoughtful. This is as scientifically uninterested as any outer space movie as I've seen and its solution for ducking larger questions is to foreground the filial drama. This is especially apparent when Roy finally meets his father on the Lima Project. Clifford is a potentially very interesting character, who is fascinated in finding extra-terrestrial to the exclusion of anything else, but we're granted zero insight into his findings over the years beyond "Haven't found anything yet." The film errs in portraying him as un-complicatedly straightforward, such that I wasn't affected by the following scene because I had already made my peace that I was watching a film that required him to do or be whatever was needed for the script.

Still mostly like everything I wrote about below but "one of the better films I've seen where I never bought the premise" is overstating it.
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Re: Ad Astra reviews

Post by gunnar »

I was looking forward to Ad Astra and saw it in the theater the first week it was out, but I left disappointed. The film was interesting at times, but I was really turned off by its glacial pace. I also seem to remember that the lighting didn't really work for me at times either. It's definitely not a film I have any interest in watching again, though perhaps I would appreciate it more on a second viewing.
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Re: Ad Astra reviews

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Ad Astra is one of the better films I’ve seen in recent years where I didn’t ever really buy the premise of the film. I’m generally not much of a fan of James Gray or his quest to be The Greatest Filmmaker Alive — although, I haven’t seen The Lost City of Z and I’ve heard it’s quite good. This is as good a film as I’ve seen him make. What I found most compelling is that it’s one of the few outer space-set films to involve a spiritual concerns. All of his films are in one way or another about the God-shaped hole inside of us. Ad Astra begs this question of this near-future in interesting ways suggesting that we will have the same concerns about materialism that we do today and that we will not move on past religion as so many future-set films suggest. In the world of Ad Astra, existence is so perilous that belief in God may as well be the only thing that keeps one sane for fear of horrible death in space. I also found it to be a pretty moving portrait of a depression.

I could poke holes through this film for days and -- again -- I can't really defend the fact that I never really bought the plot, but I appreciated it as a gesture. The auteur astronaut sub-genre really does have a strong success ratio.

It should have been nominated for several down ballot awards. I didn't hear it mentioned for Best Production Design but it might have my favorite of the year. I suspect the poor monkey CGI is why it wasn’t short-listed for VFX, or perhaps some of the Neptune photography which I found less convincing.
Last edited by Sabin on Mon Apr 25, 2022 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ad Astra reviews

Post by anonymous1980 »

A belated interjection here: I personally loved the film (see my review) and I like James Gray's work. But I have to say, and I don't think anyone has pointed this out yet but this is a very rare breed of film. It's a $100 million studio picture that's a wholly original science-fiction film, not based on any existing popular IP, that's quite cerebral and artsy, made by a filmmaker who's not a household name, not an Oscar-winner or even made big blockbuster films. All he had was a big movie star, Brad Pitt, as a producer with some influence who wanted to work with him and a good reputation among cinephiles and film critics. That's it. It's a minor miracle a film like this gets made nowadays.
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Re: Ad Astra reviews

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Mister Tee wrote:I'm very ambivalent about this movie. If I'm in a snarky mood, I might say, Well, Gray wrote a fairly typical outer space thriller to get a studio to sign on, but neglected to tell them he was going to direct it at a funereal pace. But, on very much the other hand, I felt the spell the movie cast, with its moody look, score and tempo, made it feel distinctive and even memorable. So, I guess I liked it -- but if someone told me they were bored cuckoo, I wouldn't have much rebuttal. (Oh, and one piece of snark I simply can't resist: after the multi-part trek Pitt had to make to get all the way to Neptune, it seemed pretty fortunate he was able to score a non-stop flight home.)
It was nuclear propulsion that enabled Pitt to get back home non-stop.

I liked the film for pretty much the same reasons you did, but there was a lot I didn't understand, including how Pitt was able to get home so quickly. I found this USA Today article on-line which pretty much explains everything I was confused about.

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/09/ad-ast ... ight-wrong
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Re: Ad Astra reviews

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I'm very ambivalent about this movie. If I'm in a snarky mood, I might say, Well, Gray wrote a fairly typical outer space thriller to get a studio to sign on, but neglected to tell them he was going to direct it at a funereal pace. But, on very much the other hand, I felt the spell the movie cast, with its moody look, score and tempo, made it feel distinctive and even memorable. So, I guess I liked it -- but if someone told me they were bored cuckoo, I wouldn't have much rebuttal. (Oh, and one piece of snark I simply can't resist: after the multi-part trek Pitt had to make to get all the way to Neptune, it seemed pretty fortunate he was able to score a non-stop flight home.)

I did very much like the visuals in the film -- not only the effects in and of themselves, but the way they were grounded in a believable future-reality. I found them WAY more impressive than the few on the VFX shortlist I've seen so far. I wonder why the branch would have excluded them at this early stage: do they just not like the movie and wish to punish it? Or, after last year, have they realized voters at large are going to vote for any "serious" movie if there's one available, and the majority of them want to push for a Marvel type film?
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Re: Ad Astra reviews

Post by Okri »

I thought it was quite involving and surprisingly full of incident. It's gorgeously realized.

I'm not sure I bought the hope in the ending, but I'm curious what a rewatch will reveal.
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Re: Ad Astra reviews

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Saw this the other day and found it all rather dull, uninvolving and pretty much what I expected. There is was a review in The Guardian that I didn't bother to read but it was headlined as 'Brad Pitt sulks in space', which is pretty witty.

However, to be fair to the film it is not a genre that I like. I have zero interest in films set beyond this planet, including a number of highly regarded documentaries (For All Mankind being one of the notable exceptions). So my own prejudices to the subject matter don't really make me an ideal person to view the film in a balanced way.

James Gray has been doing his own thing for a quarter of a century with mixed results and I do keep waiting for a masterwork to emerge. I have little doubt that he has one in him somewhere. Brad Pitt was the highlight of the film though. His mostly not been too impressive in roles in require a great deal of internalisation but he nails this well and James Gray is one of the best directors of actors working in America. Too bad the rest of the cast were pretty much wasted though.
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Re: Ad Astra reviews

Post by dws1982 »

I understand but it's also fine if you were! I'm a math teacher--being pedantic is pretty much what I get paid to do.
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Re: Ad Astra reviews

Post by Greg »

Wasn't being pedantic. I haven't seen Ad Astra yet, and, the previous reviews I read said Brad Pitt's character went to Neptune. When I read your review, it made me wonder if his character went much further afield.
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Re: Ad Astra reviews

Post by dws1982 »

If we're being pedantic, that's correct.
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Re: Ad Astra reviews

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dws1982 wrote:The ending here is more muted, maybe more Hollywood, but like I said, more hopeful, suggesting that maybe Pitt's character needed to take himself to the edge of the universe in order to know he wasn't alone.
I thought Pitt's character only went to the edge of the solar system.
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Re: Ad Astra reviews

Post by dws1982 »

This probably does have a whiff of compromise to it, but I loved it. It still felt very much like a James Gray movie in the way it shows people who are willing to go the edge of civilization itself (the edge of the known universe in this case) in a quest to understand something, in search of a tangible connection to someone. Like other Gray films, it's also about men who follow their fathers down a grandiose path that may not really lead anywhere. And like so many Gray films--especially Two Lovers--this is a movie made by someone who seems to truly understand what it means to fall into a depressive pit, who understands how depression causes us to isolate ourselves because we often don't want to let anyone share the burden of our pain. But it's also a more hopeful film than Two Lovers, which ended with Joaquin Phoenix's character making an impulsive decision that would probably lead to more heartbreak. The ending here is more muted, maybe more Hollywood, but like I said, more hopeful, suggesting that maybe Pitt's character needed to take himself to the edge of the universe in order to know he wasn't alone.
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Ad Astra reviews

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