I finally watched Ad Astra and WOW, I never could have prepared myself for how boring it was. It was slow beyond belief and I found myself dozing off several times.
Brad Pitt is one of the greatest actors of all time, so I was completely shocked when Ad Astra fell flat. This movie is extremely slow, ridiculously boring, and I found myself not caring about him as a character at all. Sure, he has his connection issues, which he mentions several times throughout the movie. Maybe that is part of the reason I couldn’t connect with him at all.
I am being totally honest when I say that I had to look up his character’s name before writing this review to make sure I got it right. That shows how much I did not care about Roy (that’s his character’s name if you were wondering).
Most of this movie is Roy’s voice overs — the thoughts in his head — and they are spoken very mechanically. There is no feeling behind them at all. I get that this is part of who he is, his blood pressure doesn’t normally spike, no matter what. But this makes him really boring. B-O-R-I-N-G. I often found myself grabbing my phone, or trying hard to keep my eyes open. With the cast and premise, this movie could have been amazing, but it wasn’t.
Lost Potential
I love a good science fiction movie, and that is exactly what I was expecting from Ad Astra. A man who thought he lost his dad many years ago, and follows in his footsteps to explore space. He then finds out that he might be wrong, and there is a chance his dad is still out there. The dad might have gone crazy, and killed his own crew members — only time will tell. This has the makings of everything I could want in a movie. But it was not executed correctly.
Maybe if the movie was cut down by about a half hour and had more action and less voice over, it would have hit the mark. Or at least be somewhat entertaining. I was only completely engaged for about ten minutes of this movie, at the part when Roy sneaks on to the rocket and fights with the crew members. That was only entertaining part.
The ending was completely lost on me because I just did not care about Roy and his relationship with whatever Liv Tyler’s character’s name is. We didn’t see nearly enough of her to make me want them to be together — or not together. I was not in the least bit invested in them and their relationship, which made this whole movie feel pointless and like a waste of two hours (that felt like three).
Overall Thoughts
Ad Astra has a fantastic cast, which is part of the reason it came as such a shock that it was such a bad movie. It is mostly just Brad Pitt talking in his head about things that I never ended up caring about. Liv Tyler is in it for about 2 minutes, and because of this I didn’t care about their relationship, or the fact that he feels alone without her.
What could have been a great sci-fi movie was bogged down with dialogue and no real story. It is extremely boring and not worth a watch. Skip this one. Trust me.
About Ad Astra
Astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) travels to the outer edges of the solar system to find his missing father and unravel a mystery that threatens the survival of our planet. His journey will uncover secrets that challenge the nature of human existence and our place in the cosmos.
You can purchase Ad Astra on Amazon, but I wouldn’t bother.
Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. She is also a Freelance Writer. Tessa has been in the Entertainment writing business for ten years and is a member of several Critics Associations including the Critics Choice Association and the Greater Western New York Film Critics Association.
3 Comments
Amazing how you missed the essence of this movie. It is clear that you may not ever enjoy a cerebral SF movie.
Roy is certainly not boring. He is certainly not without feeling – on the contrary. In his silence you can feel the struggle, in his constant calm words you can feel anger held back, unspoken fear and unshed tears. In all his movements you can see determination with hidden cause.
The movie portrays his mental voyage, his travel between silence, resignation in nihilism and the struggle to find a cause and place for himself and humanity.
That hidden struggle was placed inside a failed father-son relationship, threatening the entire human civilisation. That relationship in its turn was also placed within (or rather drenched in) existential nihilism. When Roy decides that that is not the way he wants to see life in general, his personal life and human life, he lets go of the man who was unable to do that: his father. Roy consciously decides to appreciate life and hope, while his father was never able to do that and just looks outside in search for extra terrestrial meaning.
So I guess in some sense we saw a completely different movie. I hope you can think about these things and maybe even turn back to that movie once more to appreciate its pace, the hidden meanings in each and every shot and the clear and flashing emotional spurts that are desperately kept at bay by the main character. Roy. His name was Roy. 😉
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