“Ad Astra,” starring Brad Pitt as an astronaut in the
near future, is easily the most expensive production
yet for Gray (“We Own the Night,” “Two Lovers”).
Its timing is fortuitous. Coming on the heels of
Pitt’s radiant performance in “Once Upon a Time
... in Hollywood,” “Ad Astra” seems almost like an
encore amid all the (deserved) celebration of its
lead performer, a singular star in a movie universe
with few that can match his luster.
But “Ad Astra,” more intimate than it is majestic,
is much more than a rocket-fueled vehicle for its
star. It’s a ruminative, mythical space adventure
propelled by father-son issues of cosmic
proportions. Pitt’s Roy McBride is ordered to the
far reaches of the solar system to make contact
with his previously presumed dead father, a
legendary space explorer named H. Clifford
McBride (Tommy Lee Jones).
He’s feared to have gone mad, and is suspected
of having something to do with power surges
playing havoc with Earth’s electronics. In the
film’s staggering first moments, McBride is
working on a miles-high antenna, like Jack on a
beanstalk to the sky, when a surge sweeps over
it. Explosions follow and McBride plummets
through the stratosphere.
“Ad Astra” is mapped like “Apocalypse Now.”
(Gray is so devoted a Coppola fan that he ranks
dinners by the director’s oeuvre .) Instead of an
ominous, top-secret trek down a Vietnamese
river toward Colonel Kurtz, McBride is hopping
between planetary stations (a string of
colonized bases exist on the moon and Mars,
with Neptune the next destination) en route to
another missing hero-turned-psychopath, with a
mission to potentially search and destroy.