Grade: A-
This might be the best year of Brad Pitt’s career. In the past 3 months alone, he has given two wonderful performances – both very different from each other – in two movies that were as strong as the work he did in them. After his memorable turn as the stuntman in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, now we have Ad Astra, which is as good a space movie as I’ve ever seen.
It takes place in an unspecified future where you can take a commercial flight to the moon, and once you arrive, it looks remarkably like any other airport terminal. There are escalators, there is breathable air indoors, and you can even get a sandwich at Subway. Those who are homesick for Disney will appreciate the quiet, vast, galactic, futuristic atmosphere that director James Gray creates, and sticks with all the way through. It reminded me of the last few minutes of Spaceship Earth (the big golf ball ride at Epcot), as well as many attractions in Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom – particularly the line for Space Mountain, and portions of the People Mover ride.
Adding to this hypnotic vibe is an excellent understated performance by Brad Pitt, as an astronaut who is notoriously always calm and cool, no matter where he might find himself flying or falling. His character is at least a handful of years younger than Pitt’s age in real life; with the increasingly prevalent use of CGI “de-aging” (like they did with Samuel L. Jackson in Captain Marvel and the teenage actors in IT Chapter 2), I have to wonder if Pitt got a little of the same treatment here. He looked every bit his age in Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood, and looks suspiciously younger here. Tommy Lee Jones is perfectly cast as Pitt’s father, also an astronaut, who went missing a couple decades ago, and was presumed dead until some new information gives a shred of hope that he might be alive, well, and living on Neptune – still trying to find intelligent life out there. We primarily see him through old video messages, so I’m not spoiling as much as it may sound. Known for playing hard, no-nonsense, curt curmudgeons, here he finds beats of softness, slowness, and sweetness. The supporting cast includes Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler, Natasha Lyonne, and Donald Sutherland, who definitely was not de-aged.
But it’s Pitt and Jones who are the anchors of Ad Astra. They bear a resemblance to each other that I had not thought of before, and I wonder if they researched one another’s speech patterns and mannerisms. It is amazing to see. There is a lot in Ad Astra that’s amazing to see.
Grade: A-
Film Reviews by Mark 
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