MovieChat Forums > Ad Astra (2019) Discussion > Once again, critics are full of shit.

Once again, critics are full of shit.

posted 5 years ago by Drooch (5333)
28 replies | jump to latest

Just got back from seeing this and it was decidedly underwhelming.

It has the texture of a profound film - restrained, meditative, a focus on performance, drawing from great literature (Heart Of Darkness quest for a mysterious rogue lunatic) but it never got beyond the outline written on a café napkin. Nobody turned it into a movie.

(Spoilers ahead)

The characters lacked definition. Pitt has daddy issues but we never get a proper sense of them. He plays the emotional detachment well but what was his childhood actually like? I think the film needed to either show us explicitly, or go for broke and make it largely a silent film. The voiceover sounded like a last minute patch job to help a dumb audience out, like the first cut of Blade Runner.

Same goes for the ‘thriller’ aspects. The moon battle and baboon attack were simply not needed to tell this father-son space odyssey, they were action filler that didn’t connect to the theme.

Not only that, such scenes were ill thought out. Why the hell would the military escort crucial personnel in fully exposed moon buggies through pirate infested regions? Surely they would use military might to clear the area before taking such a risk? They got their own people killed needlessly.

Also, why does Pitt travel to Mars to send a recording? Why not record it from Earth then beam it over to Mars if necessary..?

And having Pitt kill the shuttle pilots before basically completing their mission. Sure, I’m glad he got to resolve his daddy issues but what about the families he’s just destroyed by slaughtering these innocents?

When he meets his dad, the guy is a stone cold bastard and flat out admits he despised his wife and kid. He’s a total villain with very little characterisation. There’s no meaningful exchange between them about events of the past. Part of me suspects TLJ is simply supposed to represent white patriarchy - fascinated with space exploration and with a pinch of religiosity - basically the devil as far as modern Hollywood is concerned.

The whole thing was just wafer thin and disappeared up its own plot holes, fancy Latin name and all.

[–] DracTarashV2 (4474) 5 years ago

Correction: you are full of it.

That modern Hollywood dig though... lol. So banal. Ya preaching to all the paranoid reactionaries on this site who miss the good ol’ days when Hollywood was 100% dominated by the oh-so-disenfranchised group modern Hollywood is supposedly on a mission to eradicate (according to said reactionaries). *sigh*

Take those two cents.

[–] Satan2016 (23278) 5 years ago

Your rant doesn't address anything in the OP. The next four posts all agree with the OP. So do several IMDb reviews!

[–] Lampedusean (498) 5 years ago

You're not adding, Drac. OP is right, the movie is a a self-help glossy from the coffee table at a cheap nail salon.

[–] Drooch (5333) 5 years ago

Your massively defensive reply completely confirms my suspicions, Drac. Thank you.

[–] Juschill (779) 5 years ago

I pretty much agree with all of what you wrote.

I thought Pitt played it well. Subtle Brad Pitt is him at his best.

The voice over reminded me of a Terrence Malick movie. Unfortunately this didn’t pick a lane and go in that direction or avoid it altogether.

[–] TandyMan (10339) 5 years ago

Your thoughts resonate with a lot of other opinions i've read online. If everybody is thinking this same stuff, it's a turkey.

[–] AnubisRaydeen (7897) 5 years ago

Yeah it was pretty bad. I will give it credit for the idea. That being that Tommy discovered that there is no life out there and we need to look to ourselves for the future. That and Brad's final monologue were pretty good. Brad was, in fact, good in this. I am OK with the voice-over. I prefer original BR as I am a fan of film-noir.
Overall, Ad Astra gets a C. I didn't like it but there are a few cool, disjointed, aimless, scenes that I enjoyed. I feel like C is too good for it but D+ seems too low. C-?

I would add to the list of complaints:

How did they create anti matter waves? Why did the crew aim anti matter waves back toward earth? Weren't they the ones who wanted to go back? Tommy "has been trying to fix that" for 16 years? That's it? They brush aside the main driving plot point.

79 days to Neptune? Try years. 3 years to Mars from Earth so I assume something like 15 to 20 years to get to Neptune.

Ruth shows up to collect a paycheck. Worthless scene. She is concerned that the mission is "seek and destroy" ... why doesn't she like that? Isn't she "in charge of many lives here on Mars?" Wouldn't she want the source of the anti matter waves to be destroyed?

The flashbacks are lame tv quality asides. Should have been left out completely.

[–] maximmm (3034) 5 years ago

It's funny, not having life on Neptune doesn't prove shit about life in space in general - meaning that it doesn't mean that we only have each other to rely on-

Anyways, the whole premise is.... well, full of illogical holes, starting with the whole idea that Brad has to go to Mars to record a message - this being set in the future, where I'm sure the recording technology is vastly superior to ours, but is treated as if it is stuck in the 1930's - much like the moon chase, which implies that the moon has turned into the wild west, without atmosphere, no living city like in total recall, etc.

The more you think about this movie, the more you realize that it's stupid in nearly every way that matters.

[–] AnubisRaydeen (7897) 5 years ago

I agree that this movie is stupid. The moon chase was cool to see but absurd within the frame of the film. Same with baboon attack. Those two scenes could be modularly attached to some sci-fi tv show and made good.

Regarding the life thing: It wasn't confirmation of no life on Neptune, they went to lengths to show that Tommy had unfettered access to cosmos-wide research and had found nothing in the way of life anywhere. Brad wanted to get that information back home. That info being that to the best of our much expanded knowledge, we are alone and should devote our resources accordingly. An interesting idea that could have been done properly ... in an entirely different movie. One done competently.

I agree that the more I think about this movie, the more problems there are with it.

[–] AtomicReturns (1252) 4 years ago

Regarding the life thing: It wasn't confirmation of no life on Neptune, they went to lengths to show that Tommy had unfettered access to cosmos-wide research and had found nothing in the way of life anywhere.

I must've missed that part. I wish the movie went into more detail here. But how would just going to Neptune give Tommy Lee Jones that access to cosmos-wide research? Wouldn't that be like Spanish explorers only stopping at a certain non-descript island in the Atlantic, and then going "Nope, not much more out there. Time to turn back."

[–] NoEasyBuckets (332) 4 years ago

To be honest, the fact that he was searching for life in the universe and found nothing was pretty clear. He killed his crew because they found nothing and wanted to return. That's why there's the whole scene where TJL is saying he failed, and Brad Pitt tells him he didn't fail because he answered the question and now we know we're alone. Pitt is returning with the information that proves there is no intelligent life out there.

As for why Neptune, there was some silly explanation early on about how it's outside of the Sun's radiation or something so they can search the entire universe for life from there.

[–] ATG6 (3000) 4 years ago

It would take forever to search the whole universe. Just sayin'... He searched at most a few grains of sand on one beach.

[–] Strazdas (2328) 4 years ago

The reason he had to go to Mars is because Mars underground base was the only one not affected by the surge (pressumably due to different orbit) and therefore had a trnasmission tower strong enough to reach Neptune still opperational. Its nothing to do with technology and everything to do with surge not destrying the mars facility.

[–] MediumGiantAnt (15) 5 years ago

It seemed like they couldn't decide if they wanted a slow-paced movie about character development or an action movie, so they tried to cram both in and did a poor job with both.

"People are gonna get bored listening to Brad Pitt's psyc eval monologues and it's still half an hour before the space monkey attack. Add some moon pirates!"

[–] Lampedusean (498) 5 years ago

...and put those in the trailer!

[–] maximmm (3034) 5 years ago

lol

Given how they didn't fit the general narrative, it makes you wonder if the whole purpose of those actions scenes was for the trailer alone.

[–] Lampedusean (498) 5 years ago

Thank Electron for these forums where people can be persuaded to wait for the "grey imports" before watching a movie and lose more than time.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Drooch could not agree more. And I feel *I* should have been the audience for this one.

There's this war on mars... do we care? No, just makes and exciting chase, no other purpose, does not affect plot at all. Never referenced again.

Monkey's get loose? Ok, do we care? No, just makes an exciting scene, no other purpose, dose not affect the plot at all. Never referenced again.

Crazy solar system flashes of antimatter killing everyone? We get almost NOTHING about this huge plot point. It's broken, we nuke it, done. Didn't really seem to AFFECT the plot at all.

Kid wants to help dad? Ok, shove some inner monologues at us. Does it make us care more? It does not.

SAD movie.

[–] Drooch (5333) 5 years ago

As well as the ‘evil white patriarchy’ messaging, I’m also suspicious of eco-messaging. The film heavy handedly tells us to abandon space exploration and instead cherish what’s right in front of us, ie. stop funding NASA and instead plough those finances into whatever Saint Greta tells you to fund.

I’m speculating of course, but when characters are this thin, action scenes inserted this crudely, and critics are this enthusiastic about something so obviously flawed... you have to start asking questions.

[–] brux (14666) 5 years ago

The trailers looked like shite to me.
I don't think Sci-Fi is Pitt's genre.