Gray also employs a canny blend of genres. In the movie’s press notes, writer/director James Gray says that Ad Astra pulled from a lot of sources, ranging from Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth, The Hero’s Journey to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Similarly, the voiceover track that threads Roy's thoughts through the action veer between the poetic and the psychotherapeutic — sometimes bitter and incisive ("We go to work, we do our jobs, and then it's over") and frequently unnecessary ("I've been trained to compartmentalize," he points out, as if we hadn't noticed).It's set in a near future when interplanetary travel is not just a thing but a crucial source of hope; other worlds might offer remedies for Earth's persistent woes (unseen, but we can imagine). Another, set among the rocky rings of Neptune and featuring what amounts to a metallic boogie board, is tough to buy into, however.Running time: 122 minutes. His pulse has never topped 80, and they can't hear that angry voiceover.Though Roy has a number of encounters on his travels from Earth to the Moon to Mars and beyond, his is essentially a solitary journey, a fact that's underscored in Van Hoytema's fluent layering of reflection and shadow, in the outstanding sound design by Gary Rydstrom, and throughout Kevin Thompson's production design, which has a lived-in, unshowy emphasis on practical, rather than digital, artistry.Jones, seen in archival video messages and a present-day sequence, is an affectingly haunted figure. [Full review in Spanish]By opting to have your ticket verified for this movie, you are allowing us to check the email address associated with your Rotten Tomatoes account against an email address associated with a Fandango ticket purchase for the same movie.Please reference “Error Code 2121” when contacting customer service.You can always edit your review after.Gray has a gift for shrinking massive set pieces and enlarging private dramas.The percentage of Approved Tomatometer Critics who have given this movie a positive reviewThere may be alien life out there, but sometimes we have to appreciate the life right in front of us.For most of its running time, Ad Astra amounts to a rather somber and sterile two-hour orbit.Please enter your email address and we will email you a new password.To lavish too much praise on Mr. Pitt's performance would be to somehow suggest he isn't already among the best actors on screen. The first reviews for James Gray’s space epic Ad Astra are in. Ad Astra is almost entirely funded by Musk himself, who gave the school $475,000 per year in 2014 and 2015, as Ars Technica discovered in a tax document filed with the US Internal Revenue Service. The search for intelligent life has been underway at least since Clifford McBride (Jones) led the Lima Project to the outer edges of the solar system, only to disappear, along with his ship and crew. He’s too distant, too numbly preoccupied with his disconsolate demons.
“Ad Astra” is a Latin phrase that means “to the stars,” and in case you’re wondering where all this is heading, the answer is Neptune, but the real answer is: toward a standard drama of pain, tears, and reconciliation. Early on, we assume we’re in for a pretty straightforward space flick — here’s your mission, strap in — and then it segues into a psychological thriller with several exciting action sequences, one involving a monkey. And this film does indeed go to some dark places. Ad Astra is one of Pitt's best performances to date as he compartmentalizes Roy's feelings in order to play the part of the dutiful, calm, clear-headed soldier.