Ad Astra (2019) Dir: James Gray
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The yearning for science fiction brought me to this James Gray directed space adventure, which seemed to have fairly good ratings, though not too many spectacular ones. Still, I had plenty of optimism that I would enjoy it. I was wrong.
The film, quite frankly, was two hours of dreary and hollow meandering through space. I was waiting for some true cohesion, some feeling of sincerity, which ultimately never arrived. It failed in any capacity to pull me into its clumsy 'Apocalypse Now' meets 'Interstellar' narrative.
The film's cinematography was good, I'll say that much. There were plenty of interesting shots and visual effects, which I definitely appreciated. From an auditory standpoint, I thought the film had a decent, but not exceptional, soundtrack. The sound effects were pretty strong all around too, it must be said.
The story was a loose journey held together by seemingly circumstantial events and shallow emotions. It felt so painfully slow and repetitive. There were a number of pointless scenes, seemingly for the sake of semi-impressive visuals. The writing was heavy on the exposition, yet vacuous of any profound meaning.
Brad Pitt played a bland, near-unfeeling man with daddy issues, complete with an inane, dull and droning voice over. It was frustrating, to be honest. Pitt's performance seemed to strive for complex and deep, but just came across, like the rest of the film, as superficial.
Tommy Lee Jones gave the most interesting performance in the film, despite his distinct lack of screentime. I found his facial expressions and body language to be expressive in a way that Pitt failed to do. He was excellent.
Of the supporting cast, those most deserving of mentions were the likes of Ruth Negga, John Ortiz, Donald Sutherland and Liv Tyler - particularly Sutherland, despite the brevity of his screentime and performance.
Overall, I found this to be a pretty disappointing piece of sci-fi. I can see that it was trying to do something, but it failed to leave any significant impression on me, beyond how dull it was. I'm sad to say that I was utterly relieved when the credits rolled. There was a good film in there, somewhere in the vastness of this film's universe, but the one I watched was not it.
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