Ad Astra (2019)
Directed by James Gray
The near future, a time when both hope and hardships drive humanity to look to the stars and beyond. While a mysterious phenomenon menaces to destroy life on planet Earth, astronaut Roy McBride undertakes a mission across the immensity of space and its many perils to uncover the truth about a lost expedition that decades before boldly faced emptiness and silence in search of the unknown.
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81 films that influenced Ad Astra
What critics say influenced Ad Astra
Deliberate, downbeat, vast in scope and theme but emotionally intimate, it evokes — at times overtly — the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey , Solaris , Contact and Arrival .
Shot with widescreen majesty on 35mm, Ad Astra combines sinewy, space-bound sequences – all floating elegance and weightless wonder – with moments of shimmery inner stillness, reminiscent of Soderbergh’s undervalued Solaris remake.
The influence of iconic science-fiction films like Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey are evident from the outset with the narrative following a path akin to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now .
Truthfully, Gray’s feature rather terrifically splits the difference between the high-momentum survival thrills of Gravity and Interstellar and artier, more ruminative sci-fi touchstones: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Solaris (1972) The Fountain (2006), Melancholia (2011), Arrival (2016), and Claire Denis’ recent, slippery contribution to that sub-genre, High Life .
Solaris, Interstellar, Gravity, 2001: A Space Odyssey — Gray pays homage to each and more, along with another, more earthbound, masterwork: Apocalypse Now.
Visually, it combines the best of Interstellar , Gravity , The Martian , and First Man , with plenty of callbacks to classic space fare like 2001: A Space Odyssey , Contact , and Solaris .
Deliberate, downbeat, vast in scope and theme but emotionally intimate, it evokes — at times overtly — the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey , Solaris , Contact and Arrival .
A medical room, with its white equipment and orange easy chairs, harks back to the stylised 1960s vibe in 2001: A Space Odyssey .
One can sense an attempt by filmmaker James Gray to tap into the vein mined by Stanley Kubrick in his classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The influence of iconic science-fiction films like Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey are evident from the outset with the narrative following a path akin to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now .
With Ad Astra he has ventured into outer space, fully aware of the pitfalls: being compared to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey or, more recently, Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity.
Roy’s journey to Neptune involves stopping at a series of manned way stations — first on the moon, then Mars — that echo the expository sections of “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
This is far more character-driven and introspective, but its themes and approach echo film classics from John Ford’s The Searchers to Apocalypse Now, and even the father-son dynamic that was so movingly a part of Field of Dreams, all movies in which our key player in on a mission that takes detours beyond what you might normally expect from big-budget Hollywood movies.
Roy is a great role for Brad Pitt, who narrates throughout in a measured, groggy voice reminiscent of Martin Sheen’s Apocalypse Now character.
The common touchstone on that point seems to be the work of Terrence Malick, but Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) is far more fitting as Roy makes his long, frightening journey towards the Col. Kurtz-like goal that is his father.
The influence of iconic science-fiction films like Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey are evident from the outset with the narrative following a path akin to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now .
Gray and his fellow scribe, Fringe' s Ethan Gross, are clearly aiming for ( The Tree of Life 's Terrence) Malick-meets-Kubrick ( 2001 's Stanley) by way of Joseph Conrad ( Heart of Darkness , the book that inspired Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now ).
His character’s search for his parentage channels Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now (1979) and its infamous Kurtz figure, and highlights clever world-building from Gray.
The search riffs on the “Heart of Darkness” dynamic of Joseph Conrad, with Roy’s search for a father he has mirrored his career on.
I can think of any number of sci-fi films Ad Astra seems to be paying homage to, but it’s also clear Gray looked to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as a model for the plot.
Gray and his fellow scribe, Fringe' s Ethan Gross, are clearly aiming for ( The Tree of Life 's Terrence) Malick-meets-Kubrick ( 2001 's Stanley) by way of Joseph Conrad ( Heart of Darkness , the book that inspired Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now ).
The “Heart of Darkness” template is, of course, anyone’s to draw upon, but what made Francis Ford Coppola’s film great is that he used Joseph Conrad’s classic as a frame on which to hang his psychedelic-slaughter vision of contemporary combat.
In this sense, Clifford is more like Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness , transposed so brilliantly to Vietnam by Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now!
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It’s a sci-fi movie in the same vein as Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” and Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity” – it actually sits rather nicely at a midpoint between the two in terms of relative technological advancement while also echoing the complex emotional dynamics they put forth.
In particular it recalls Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar , and not only because of the sweeping, naturalistic visual sensibility that Dutch cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema brought to both films.
Ad Astra , the new movie from James Gray ( The Lost City of Z ), naturally recalls any number of other sci-fi exercises, from 2001: A Space Odyssey (which set the Bakelite-gleam standard for decades of extraterrestrial adventures to come) to Gravity and Interstellar .
The visual genius behind Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk and Interstellar (which feels much like Ad Astra) is again at the top of his game, assisted admirably by Max Richter’s inspirational score, not to mention an impeccable sound design and impressive but never obtrusive special effects.
Ad Astra is a sometimes compelling space drama, but it can't quite match the heights of both Gravity or Interstellar.
Solaris, Interstellar, Gravity, 2001: A Space Odyssey — Gray pays homage to each and more, along with another, more earthbound, masterwork: Apocalypse Now.
There are a few decent ones here, starting with a lunar action sequence that kicks up a lot of moon dust and suspicion, and one grisly shock that nods ever so quickly in the direction of “Alien” and its creature-feature ilk.
Kevin Thompson’s production design is also impressive, with the futuristic sets combining the austerity of Kubrick’s vision with the more lived-in feel of films like Ridley Scott’s “Alien.”
Director James Gray’s style harks back to classic space movies, such as “Alien” and “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” that played around with the vastness of the stars, and made it seem like there was nowhere lonelier.
Like Alien and Total Recall , it imagines how space exploration (and space tourism) might become ordinary.
Therein lies the barely serious plot of Ad Astra (Latin for “to the stars”), which also borrows freely from 2001: A Space Odyssey , Gravity , Alien and Interstellar .
That’s pretty much what the spaceship does in “Alien” (1979), too, except that what happens there plants the squirming seed of everything else that unfurls in the rest of the film.
It opens with a dramatic scene just outside the Earth’s atmosphere that evokes 2013’s “Gravity.”
With Ad Astra he has ventured into outer space, fully aware of the pitfalls: being compared to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey or, more recently, Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity.
Ad Astra is a sometimes compelling space drama, but it can't quite match the heights of both Gravity or Interstellar.
The score from Max Richter might sound familiar because he’s worked on The Leftovers and Villeneuve’s Arrival, but it’s also evocative and enveloping, especially during a third-action scene that brings to mind Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity.
Astra begins, for instance, with an enormous set piece on the International Space Antenna–a Babelian structure made in the hope of contacting distant life forms–that echoes the opening to Cuarón’s Gravity with all its flying debris and flailing human bodies.
Consistent with the past decade’s run of high-profile space thrillers – including Gravity (2013), Interstellar (2014), The Martian (2015), and First Man (2018) – as well as the influential “NASA procedurals” Countdown (1967) and Marooned (1969), Gray’s film is absorbed with the process by which humans are hurled across thousands, millions, or billions of miles of airless nothingness.
Ryan Gosling’s existentially adrift Neil Armstrong, Sandra Bullock’s solitary survivor of a space station–destroying disaster, Matt Damon’s left-behind scientist sowing his potatoes in the red Mars dirt: All these were movie stars-in-space in the same tradition as Pitt’s Roy McBride, who also supplies a noir-tinged voiceover that’s reminiscent of the older sci-fi classic Blade Runner .
(As in Blade Runner [1982] and Total Recall [1990] such product placements rather cunningly work double-duty as tart satire.)
This science fiction story pulls from all manner of influences – “Blade Runner,” “Apocalypse Now,” 50s pulp sci-fi, Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Solaris,” the works of Stanislaw Lem and Alejandro Jodorowsky, “2001: A Space Odyssey” and more – in its design, storytelling and artistic touches but ends up becoming a singular work of its own.
Roy McBride’s on-the-nose musings feel less akin to Terrence Malick’s poeticism than they do to the notorious theatrical cut of Blade Runner .
(Like Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, there’s surely a cut of Ad Astra out there that is free of Pitt’s voice-over; 20th Century Fox would be wise to make it a Blu-ray extra.)
And just in case you miss the turmoil under the placid surface, director James Gray helpfully provides Roy with the klutziest internal monologue since “Blade Runner.”
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Through repetition, Roy’s flatly-delivered declarations eventually begin to recall K’s eerie “baseline tests” in Blade Runner 2049 (2017), with their ominous, numbing poetry.
There’s also a dusty passage haunted by a dog, snuffling around in homage to Stalker, and a chillout room where the walls ripple with images of birds, fishes, bees, and flowers (you may remember something similar, but glossier, in Blade Runner 2049).
One shot in particular, of Roy running on Mars, is reminiscent of Roger Deakins’ iconic silhouette from Blade Runner 2049 ‘s Las Vegas wasteland.
Like a number of recent, thoughtful science fiction films, including Ex Machina (2015), Arrival (2016), and Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Ad Astra is decidedly more interested in its philosophical underpinnings than its excitable surface of danger and adventure.
Imagine if Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines, and Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 were in a throuple: a bunch of daddy issues, existential concerns about the meaning of life, and considerations of how to operate as a person within a society that is built to diminish you.
There are the obvious generic comparisons: the emotional overtones of parental abandonment of Interstellar ; the gee-whizz set pieces of Gravity ; the psychological evaluations of Blade Runner 2049 .
Roy is a guarded, internalised character for much of the movie, touting a stoicism not unlike that of Ryan Gosling’s reserved rendition of Neil Armstrong in last year’s riveting First Man, and Pitt nimbly makes Roy terse while still nodding to the man’s internal turmoil.
Gravity , First Man and now Ad Astra all follow in a similar vein; the films are all deep psychological studies into each protagonist, exploring themes of survival and loneliness throughout their journeys.
Pitt gives one of the best performances of his career as the younger McBride, delivering a stoic, magnetically pensive turn reminiscent of Ryan Gosling’s work as Neil Armstrong in last year’s “First Man.”
Ad Astra is reminiscent of last year’s First Man — not just because they’re both technically brilliant space movies grounded by extremely interior lead characters.
This sequence is brilliantly controlled by Gray – what could have so easily descended into bombastic spectacle is scarily personal, the echoing of Roy’s flailed spinning scratching away like the Gemini 8 nightmare in First Man .
An astronaut who was the head of a U.S. Space Command initiative called the Lima Project, whose portrait hangs next to Buzz Aldrin’s at SpaceCom (a nod to First Man, I hope), Clifford’s goal was to investigate the potential of intelligent life in the far corners of our solar system.