How far would you go to track down your dad? I had to pick my dad up from the mechanic’s when his 2001 Buick LeSabre died (multiple times).
But Neptune might be pushing it. In Ad Astra, Roy, played by Brad Pitt, travels from Earth to Neptune to find his dad after a power surge from his ship rocked earth. Also, there’s been some shady space business happening on his dad’s project up there that the government wants to know about.
While Astra’s story is typical for space flicks, it has some gorgeous visuals and an out of this world performance from Pitt.
Astra’s plot isn’t a meteor that rocks the genre. It features typical space tropes like loneliness, the vastiness, and the great unknown.
But what makes it particularly hard to watch is how dull everyone is. Everyone speaks in monotone because the government controls their emotions (if only we could do that with people who tweet a lot).
That’s a tough crater to jump over, but it’s worth it for the visuals. With an IMAX theater you can see the attention to detail in every star and ring of neptune. I occasionally had to check down at my feet to make sure I wasn’t floating.
What could be floating around are Oscar noms for Pitt. Now I’m not saying he was that great, but in a tough year like this where even JLo is being considered, it’s possible.
Pitt does a nice job of restraining his emotions and acting as cool as Neptune. I might be a little more fond of his performance considering his last one in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was so bad.
Although I wouldn’t go to the ends of the earth to see it, Astra’s not bad for some beautiful visuals and good compared to all the space debris in cinemas today.
IMAGE TAKEN from theverge.com
