It
is perhaps fitting that, in the year marking the 50th anniversary of Neil
Armstrong et al.’s historic landing on the moon, a movie like ‘Ad Astra’ would
come along (the more direct treatment, ‘First Man’ from Damien Chazelle, was
released last year). Directed by James
Gray (‘The Lost City of Z’) and starring Brad Pitt, ‘Ad Astra’ represents a
different kind of space adventure drama, one whose DNA is much closer to
Stanley Kubrick's ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and Steven Soderbergh's ‘Solaris’
than ‘Gravity’ starring Sandra Bullock or ‘The Martian’ starring Matt Damon.
Set
in the not-too-distant future, ‘Ad Astra’ posits an alternate world in which
humankind has explored and settled planets (outposts if not entire populations) well beyond earth to the very edge
of our solar system, as far as Neptune to be exact (Pluto isn't a planet
anymore after all). When earth is rocked
by a series of unexplained power surges causing heavy losses of life, intrepid
and cool-under-pressure U.S. Space Command astronaut Major Roy McBride (Pitt),
who survived one such power surge, is recruited and sent out on a mission to make
contact with his father (Tommy Lee Jones), a brilliant scientist and astronaut who
failed to return from his own mission 16 years earlier going “where no man has
gone before” to seek out intelligent lifeforms, because his continuing
experiments are what's believed to be the cause of the deadly power surges
(something to do with the release of anti-matter).
Abstract,
dreamlike and ruminative, AA may not be the rollicking feel-good space adventure
to everyone’s liking on account of its snail-like pacing and occasional scenes of graphic violence (moon pirates and angry space baboons anyone?), but for all that it's not a bad movie at all. Not by a long shot. AA is a profound and
thoughtful piece, making us self-reflect and contemplate our place in the larger
universe. Comparison to Stanley
Kubrick’s masterpiece is definitely warranted, but I also can’t help but detect subtext of Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Apocalypse Now’ in this excellent and
well-crafted film.
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