'Ad Astra' is a Movie Everyone Should See

Ad Astra, a science fiction thriller directed by James Gray, projects far into the future of space exploration. The story deals with a man, Roy Mcbride (Brad Pitt), who has to go on a mission to stop his father, Clifford Mcbride (Tommy Lee Jones) from causing catastrophic, irreversible damage to the solar system. Clifford had gone on a mission called the Lima Project, the first space mission beyond the solar system in search for extraterrestrial life powered by antimatter. Through the mission, the antimatter compartment was damaged, which caused major power surges throughout the solar system which could potentially destroy all life. Roy is then sent to Mars to plea for his dad to stop.

What I loved about this movie is that it went deeper than just space exploration which was shown in the beginning of the movie when Roy was asked if he had children and he said he wouldn’t want to affect their lives negatively, and we also see a glimpse of his very distant relationship with his wife. We see many of his emotions such as isolation and loneliness, and these emotions are reflected in Clifford as well, which led to his suicide.

The film also did a good job of showing people’s lives and the conflicts we all face. Despite Clifford’s success as a world renowned astronaut, he still felt lonely, which demonstrates how fame and success don’t necessarily bring happiness. Furthermore, Clifford’s desire to restart and find intelligent life beyond Earth symbolizes the hopelessness we feel when we have given up on ourselves, because if we live in a perfect world, why would we want to seek life beyond us? Clifford said that he felt Earth had nothing left for him, which was why he didn’t want to go back with Roy. Additionally, we see the Mayday scene, and Roy finds the captain's face chewed up by some man-eating primates, the primates which symbolized the savagery and barbarism of people, which would somewhat relate to the idea of survival of the fittest. Additionally, we also see in the moon chase scene where Roy narrates, that it was people who were trying to sabotage, because they were competing for resources. We see the distance humans are willing to go when they are desperate, and I feel that these scenes represented that.

Fortunately, a friend gave me a ticket to see this movie for free in Dolby, which amazed me with its quality. There were times where I felt as if I was in the movie because of its incredible clarity and sound. The movie had a very modern cinematic touch to it, and while watching the movie, I felt like what I was watching could be a reality in the future.

This movie was fairly simple for me to understand , not many complicated science ideas behind it that were beyond me, unlike for Interstellar (which was a great movie still), it fried my mind with all the concepts, and had a very abstract and deep message within it, which I love but at the same time couldn't understand fully. Though my knowledge of science is limited, I felt that Ad Astra was something that everyone can grasp on, and really enjoy. I also felt that it was a very relevant topic, as we see currently that Elon Musk is trying to find a way to Mars.

All in all, I really liked this movie, it’s one of my favorite sci-fi thrillers, there were so many great qualities in it, it kept me attentive throughout the movie, and of course, Brad Pitt is a great actor as well. This heart-evoking story really packed a punch, and I’m definitely looking forward to more sci-fi thrillers like this in the future.

I’ll give this movie a solid 8.5/10.

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