AD ASTRA
James Gray
(2019)
Are we alone in the universe? We’ve heard this question so many times, it’s probably as old as mankind itself. — Do we get an answer from Ad Astra? Nope.
In the near future, Lima Project led by Clifford McBride is a mission to search for advanced extraterrestrial life beyond our solar system.
Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) has survived the space station’s explosion caused by what they call “Surge” from space which either cripples the electronic system or makes it exploded. He is summoned by his superiors from Space Comm to travel in disguise to the moon on a secret mission to find his long lost father Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) as his superiors have a reason to believe that his father is still alive after the Lima project’s spaceship lost all communications 16 years ago. Space Comm sends Colonel Pruitt (Donald Sutherland), an old friend of Cliff to accompany Roy on the mission.
During the transit from the colony on the moon to the military base on the dark side, the team is ambushed by a group of unknown pirates. However, Roy does make it the shuttle which he continues his journey to Mars where he can send messages to his father using a laser encrypted communication machine.
His pre-written message is sent successfully but no response from his father. He tries several times until he decides to alter the message using his own words describing the time with his father when he was young. — Immediately, he is removed from his duty and is scheduled to send back to earth.
Roy figures out that his last message finally gets a response from his father, and now they know his father’s current location. With a little help from someone inside the base, Roy now knows the truth about his father, and he is able to sneak into a deep-space spaceship. This spaceship has a mission to go after Roy’s father and annihilate the origin of the surge that could end humanity and every life on earth.
Sadly, the film doesn’t give us the answer that we want to see. Brad Pitt’s exceptional performance on his complex character is unable to bring me satisfaction. Roy accidentally kills three people to get to his father and he does the exact same thing as their mission. This probably is the biggest galactic father and son issue since Star Wars.
It’s not a bad movie, it’s cinematically well done, visually stunning in fact. But it’s a very slow-burn movie and the ending is unmemorable.
