'Ad Astra' Review Thread

Rotten Tomatoes: 89% (9 reviews) with 8.67 in averageMetacritic: 86/100 (13 critics)As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie.This sci-fi spin on Heart of Darkness is a self-conscious movie about a self-conscious man, a dutiful son who's increasingly aware of how out of place he feels — in the organization he works for and in his own skin. In a few quietly searing sequences, though, something else happens, charged and openhearted and lightning-bolt ragged: A wounded soul's gaze illuminates the way.-Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood ReporterThis is spare and mythic storytelling; the more expansive its vision gets, the more inward-looking its focus becomes. Even with a linear narrative that never slows down, a chase sequence that feels like “Fury Road” on the moon, and a suspenseful vision of the galaxy that makes room for any number of unexpected surprises (beware the claw marks inside a seemingly abandoned spaceship), “Ad Astra” is still one of the most ruminative, withdrawn, and curiously optimistic space odysseys this side of “Solaris.” It’s also one of the best.-David Ehrlich, IndieWire: ABrad Pitt is an intergalactic Captain Willard, taking a fraught mission up-river in James Gray’s Ad Astra, an outer-space Apocalypse Now which played to rapt crowds at the Venice film festival. In place of steaming jungles, this gives us existential chills. Instead of Viet Cong soldiers, it provides man-eating baboons and pirates riding dune-buggies. It’s an extraordinary picture, steely and unbending and assembled with an unmistakable air of wild-eyed zealotry. Ad Astra, be warned, is going all the way - and it double-dares us to buckle up for the trip.-Xan Brooks, The Guardian: 5/5The line between heroism and villainy has always been a fine one. In “Ad Astra,” that comes down to what we know and what we accept, whether that is a hollowed man desperate to reunite with his father or a man who allows his increasingly dubious ambitions to threaten the lives of everyone around him.-Candice Frederick, The WrapExistential but also intimate, Ad Astra is a stunning, sensitive exploration of the space left by an absent parent — and the infinite void of actual space.-John Nugent, Empire: 4/5I had similar feelings about Interstellar when I first watched it. Through subsequent viewings, I’ve since decided it’s pretty much a masterpiece. I hope I feel the same about Ad Astra later this year, or some time next year. Gray offers up so much for us to savor; it would be nice if all that umami had a richer aftertaste.-Richard Lawson, Vanity FairSublime and stupendous. Beautiful, bold and remarkably executed, this is Gray’s masterpiece, driven by a career-best turn from Pitt.-James Mottram, Total Film: 5/5At heart, it’s a short story set in space, decorated with major FX (the double rings of the evanescent blue Neptune are its most memorable image), held together by Pitt’s stalwart presence. This actor rarely makes a false move, and the fact he’s now having a moment — the well-deserved “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” Oscar buzz — could help “Ad Astra” at the box office. Yet what would help it more is if the movie had a genuine wow factor baked into its retro sci-fi aesthetic. I hope James Gray, as a director, continues to explore uncharted worlds, but even his cult of fans may find it hard to get too excited over a movie that, beneath its eye-candy space trappings, is this conventional.-Owen Gleiberman, VarietyBrad Pitt's star quality shines in an existential sci-fi spectacular.-Robbie Collin, Telegraph: 5/5The Latin phrase “Ad Astra,” translates in English, as “through hardships to the stars,” and it’s through this archetypal essence, without struggle, there is no wonder and reward, that Gray’s moving drama ultimately finds great hope and humanity on the far edges of space.-Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist: B+DIRECTORJames GrayWRITERJames Gray & Ethan GrossMUSIC COMPOSERMax RichterCINEMATOGRAPHERHoyte van HoytemaEDITORJohn Axelrad & Lee HaugenRelease date:September 20, 2019Budget:$87,500,000STARRINGBrad Pitt as Major Roy McBrideTommy Lee Jones as Clifford McBrideRuth Negga as Helen LantosLiv Tyler as Eve McBrideDonald Sutherland as Colonel PruittJamie Kennedy as Peter Bello via /r/movies https://ift.tt/2L2YewS