Ad Astra - Interstellar for Dummies

Ad Astra is a sci-fi movie that stars Brad Pitt pouting in a space suit, that’s all. 

Well, there is more in the movie but there wasn’t a really consistent theme to the film and that’s my biggest gripe but let's start at the beginning. The movie focuses on one character, Tragic White Guy Gary-Sue (or Roy McBride) as he does routine maintenance on a space ladder when a surge of energy causes an explosion. This surge of energy causes Gary-Sue to go on a hero’s quest to find the source and stop it all while he battles with his internal isolationism caused by his father. 

I felt the movie was trying to introduce several different themes however the film never followed through with a single one to its conclusion and in the end I left the theater feeling empty. Throughout the story, we’re introduced to ideas of faith, duty, family and isolation but none of these topics were fully explored and just left abandoned in the void of empty space to make room for a new theme being shoehorned in. The movie just felt bland and unfinished with no real payoff and I felt no empathy for any of the characters. If your main character is perfect in every way, why should you root for them? 

Mr. Mustang and I discussed the movie in length when leaving the theater and we realized that perhaps the movie simply isn’t meant for us; it was made for a more specific target audience - sons with strained relationships with their fathers. The movie lays out like a heavy novel that slow burns the theme of troubled relationships that is primarily aimed towards men but with outer space as a backdrop to keep the general audience interested. 

Despite the writing feeling bland, the visuals certainly weren’t. The movie treats the audience to spectacular scenes of breathtaking shots of the Moon, Mars and most of the gas giant planets. Even though the movie greatly exaggerates the scale of some of the planets and their rings, the CGI was still stunning. I heard seeing the film on the IMAX screen is worth it just for the visuals alone but like most movies taking place in space, I wish the camera would linger longer on the wide shots of the scenery rather than the human characters. 

I felt the supporting cast’s acting was top notch with a notable stand out from Donald Sutherland being particularly good. Brad Pitt nailed the role a ‘Gary-Sue’ as he stone faces his way through difficult challenges and struggles with so little emotion it was as though he was shopping for Monday’s dinner at the grocery store. There were some surprising cameos in the movie that gave the setting a little more character and personality but those moments were extremely brief so to make more room for stoic face Gary-sue, aka Roy McBride. 

The score for the movie was just ok with nothing noteworthy or music worth relistening to after the film. The movie direction and shot composition was good however that’s only because most of the scenes were copied from more successful films like Blade Runner or Interstellar.

In short, the movie is actually an intimate look into feelings of isolationism but in space. The way the plot experiments with this theme is certainly unique but the execution was painfully slow and several other elements were crammed in that took away from the overall feel of the film. In order to discuss these other elements in length, I need to go into spoiler territory…

Story Breakdown - Spoilers Below

The movie opens up after an explosion causing Roy to fall from the thermosphere and he is later told that the accident was caused by the LIMA spaceship orbiting Neptune who his father was captain of the craft. SpaceComm (the commercialized version of NASA) informs Roy that they believe his father is still alive despite losing communication with him 20+ years ago. Roy is clearly disturbed by this news but he still keeps a stern face and maintains a steady heart rate during the briefing in order to be approved for the mission. His mission (should he accept) is to travel all the way to Mars to relay a message pleading to his father to stop whatever the hell he’s doing over at Neptune. 

Already the plot is looking like swiss cheese. SpaceComm mentions that the message needs to be relayed from Mars because it hasn’t been affected by the energy surges but why does Roy physically need to be there? Can’t they record his message and relay it to Mars for broadcasting? Also, space travel is expensive regardless of what year it is in the future - this is sounds like one pricey mission if the only purpose is to relay a message to a man who may or may not be alive at the edge of the Heliosphere. 

Roy agrees to the task and he’s immediately pushed onto a rocket (brought to you by Virgin Galactic) and commutes his way to the Moon base where even more holes in the swiss cheese plot appear. During the voyage to the moon, a voice on the intercom mentions that despite the Moon being a free space where no single country can claim territory, there are still several wars being fought for resources. It’s at this point Roy’s inner thoughts to the audience start to get annoying when he mentions “I leave one planet that fights over resources for another that is fighting for resources” - que a massive eye roll from the audience. I get it, we all get it - humans are chaotic monkeys (‘subtle’ nod to that later in the movie) who don’t know how to play nice and share with others but do we really need this message constantly shoved down our collective throats?

space pirates!

The parts of the movie that took place on the Moon had a lot of weird shit - the boring airport vibe when walking through the Moon base terminal, the constant threat of space pirates raiding your ‘moon’ jeep, actual laser guns, an Applebees on the Moon?! The movie lost a lot of credibility for me when I saw the Applebees...on the moon. Well, after a poorly written action scene that looked like a boring version of Mad Max on the lunar surface - Roy McBride successfully uses his plot armor to make it to the next shuttle taking him to Mars. Roy is then introduced to four new travelers that will be joining him to his mission to Mars and for some reason they are all wearing red shirts…

Space travel in this movie is like the last season of Game of Thrones where the time it takes to get from point A to point B is a matter of days. However the plot demands conflict so during the journey to Mars, the movie’s dungeon master rolls for a random encounter and our heroes are met with a distress signal coming from an abandoned space shuttle - or is it? It’s in this scene the audience is met with a sloppy display of symbolism about rage in humans using an actual monkey who loves to eat people’s faces. Honestly I don’t understand why this scene made it to the final cut of the movie. The only thing the monkey scene provided was removing one more red shirt from the mission. 

Finally arriving at Mars, Roy gets to read his scripted message to his father and await his response. Naturally nothing happens so they try again but this time, Roy does the cliche ‘drop the script’ and speaks to his father ‘from the heart’ where he kind of gets a response back? The movie was very unclear if his father actually responded because Roy is only told that his mission is over and he’s now going back home. Thinking that he made it this far to speak to his estranged father, he rationalizes that he should make the entire journey to Neptune despite the consequences. With the help of a woman whose parents were also part of the LIMA project with Roy’s father, he smuggles himself onto a rocket while the engines are firing and sneaks onboard. The crew of the rocket (the same red shirts from the Moon to Mars journey) are understandably surprised of Roy’s presence and proceed to attempt to kill him - while the rocket is still launching into space.

James Gray, the writer for this movie mentioned during an interview that he wanted to make the most realistic space movie to date but this scene was written like bad fan fiction. There were so many flaws in this 4 minute scene alone - Roy should of burned to a crisp when sneaking up into the ship, all four characters are floating inside the rocket but they haven’t left Mars's atmosphere yet and why are they all firing a gun INSIDE THE SHIP?! Because one of the red shirts failed their gun safety class, she misses hitting Roy and instead hits a vital pressurized tank that causes everyone (except Roy because he’s wearing a space suit) to suffocate. Roy kills three people and it doesn’t even faze him. He calmly takes control of the rocket and patiently waits 2 months inside the ship as he approaches Neptune. 

convenient hatch that leads directly to the rocket

It’s here the movie fractures into more questions than answers as Roy casually parks his rocket just outside the rings of Neptune and takes a lovely space stroll to his father’s ship a mile or so away. Roy finally starts to show some emotions as he approaches the ship in anticipation to confront his father who he hasn’t seen in over 20 years. The movie has been milking Tommy Lee Jone’s character up until this point and when we get to see his character in the flesh, it’s kind of a let down. This is a man who spent several months in isolation (he killed all the crew members of the LIMA project long ago) and naturally he’s now a shell of a person. He looks tired, defeated and most of all confused that his life’s work of finding other life outside our solar system has been a failure. Due to this failure, the last remaining crew members attempted to leave the ship but the struggle caused the ‘antimatter engine’ to be damaged and thus the source of all the energy surges. 

I had a huge issue with this reveal - an energy source so powerful it reached Earth 2.7 billion miles away and is causing thousands of people to die but the actual LIMA ship is still ok. Like, how is Tommy Lee Jones still alive? How is the ship still intact? I kept thinking to myself when watching this scene (and the entire movie):

Well after a lackluster greeting between the son and father after not seeing each other for 20+ years, Roy arms a nuclear bomb to the engine and both leave the ship. If you think about it, Roy could be named son of the year considering the lengths he took just to say hi to his father in person. He bounced between three rockets, was responsible for about 12 deaths (3 that he personally killed himself) and traveled 2.7 billion miles all for his father to say he never loved him.

Once the two are floating in space, Tommy Lee Jones decides to give up living and punctures his suit causing him to drift away all while saying the cheesy line of “you have to let me go, son” to Roy. Wow, Oscar worthy writing right here. Roy mourns his father for a mere 6 seconds and then realizes ‘oh that’s right, there is a nuclear bomb that is about to go off’. He then parkours his way on top of a spinning satellite dish, rips a piece of metal sheet off of the LIMA ship and yolo’s his way through Neptune’s rings with not a single scratch on him. Roy then uses the blast from the nuclear bomb to propel him back to Earth all while not having to involve any math or enter any coordinates to arrive on the planet safely, the end.

End of Spoilers

The movie clearly took inspiration from other famous sci-fi movies and created scenes based on those films but instead of it looking like a subtle nod it ended up looking like straight plagiarism. Every scene on Mars looked identical to any moment from Blade Runner, the wide shots of outer space and planets was clearly stolen from Interstellar, the psych evaluations sounded like HAL from 2001 and the constant preachy inner monologue was ripped straight from Avatar. I do appreciate the world building this movie brings but with extensive world building also makes it easier to point out glaring flaws or mistakes. 

Overall, this movie is like an abstract painting. When viewing it, some may see subtle details and touches that feel the painting was speaking directly to them regarding their own personal struggles where others just see a series of paint strokes that don’t amass to anything meaningful. Everyone absorbs the material in their own unique way depending on their life experiences, however for me, I just see splotches of paint on a canvas that was stolen from greater works.  

Will I see this movie again? No. The film certainly is pretty on a visual scale however there isn’t enough material to convince me to watch it again just for the pretty landscape. 

Rating: 6/10