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"Ad Astra" has come up for rent on Comcast

Posted by free.ranger on December 20, 2019 at 16:54:34:
Latin for 'into the stars'. Most anyone who wanted to see this has already done so; comments far down the page.

So alert: my comments are spoilers. hard to analyze this one without making them.

Everyone figured out in the first five minutes that this is a non-veiled combo of The Right Stuff, Apocalypse Now, and Kubrick's Space Odyssey. Liberal proportions of each. Sc-fi enthusiasts will have to concentrate more on the fi, because the sci has truck-sized holes. Also, this is a dark themed movie; optimism will be hard won watching this, but there is some.

Billy said that the moon and Mars became truck stops selling t-shirts, cd's, and soft drinks. Right on. The advancements only bring the baggage forward, and do not advance human mentality.

The Space Force is well established as a military arm. Members get impromptu psych evaluations all along the way, establishing their ability to control emotions, which sets up a final display near the end when Pitt confronts his insane father, Tommy Lee. This is one of the movie's major themes -- relationships in inhuman conditions.

Tommy hasn't been looking too good for the past several years, and here he plays a guy who's been floating in a tin can under Neptune's rings for a couple of decades, in a weightless environment, eating and drinking who knows what? By himself. Again, you have to suspend the science part. The most poignant moment in the film is when he says to his son, "Let me go, Roy." You can feel it and see it on his face. Only a moment or two, but it lifts this film to another level. It might have been Jones's swan song to film. I don't think too much makeup was needed on him here. We'll see.

The other big theme was the ageless question: are we alone? Sorry, no bailouts, but Pitt discovers in the end that we are enough as is. We can take that as a comfort or as reinforcement for continued gloomy anxiety. Or maybe just leave it as it is.

For all the obvious cutting and pasting from other movies, this is a good film about the two themes. Pitt does some his best work, but IMO, this is Tommy Lee's film. If it is goodbye, then it really is a good one.