Film Review: Ad Astra

"He Gave His Life For The Pursuit Of Knowledge. Because Up There Is Where Our Story Is Going To Be Told..."

After sending half the audience to sleep with the ridiculously overrated, The Lost City of Z, back in 2016, American filmmaker, James Gray, returns to the world of cinema this week with Ad Astra, a spectacle heavy, big screen science fiction blockbuster which continues the volcano-sized, heatwave of excellence the one and only Brad Pitt is currently on after his absolutely superb work on 2019's best film of the year so far in the form of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Co-written by both Gray and Ethan Gross who reunite after their work together on Z, Ad Astra is a knowingly, and at times shockingly uncanny hybrid of Apocalypse Now and 2001: A Space Odyssey, a strangely sanctimonious science fiction thinker set in the near future which sees Pitt as Major Roy McBride, a decorated, dedicated and emotionally vacuous astronaut who is sent to the now commercially exploited reaches of Mars in order to make contact with his revered yet long lost father after power surges damaging the Earth are seen to be originating from his last known position; the far reaches of Neptune.  

Upon accessing the IMDB trivia page, director James Gray wanted Ad Astra to include the most "realistic depiction of space travel that's been put in a movie" and likened the project himself to include elements of Joseph Conrad, the author who of course supplied the blueprint for Apocalypse Now with "Heart of Darkness", and whilst the picture does indeed owe an enormous debt to simply beautiful cinematography from Hoyte van Hoytema, the acclaimed DP with previous credits on Interstellar and Dunkirk, it's fair to say that Gray's movie is one of the most ill-disciplined, so-called "clever" science fiction movies I have ever seen. Whilst I can bypass all manner of technical specifications when it comes to science fiction if the narrative has me engaged all the way through, Ad Astra is so clearly a rip-off of all similarly plotted movies to come before it that as soon as I was aware the full extent of where the movie would ultimately go, I simply became a vessel of negativity eager to plot black hole-shaped craters into elements which just didn't work whatsoever. Whilst Pitt does a solid job offering a central performance which is one half Ryan Gosling circa First Man and the other half Sam Rockwell à la Moon, as soon as the poorly designed, floating, maniacal monkeys (yes, really) showed up, I'd had enough of the narrative and focused more on the stupendous technical achievements of a movie which felt the need to become more stupid as it went on, and whilst Ad Astra failed to send me to sleep, Gray's latest is indeed a spectacular technical achievement which fails at the first hurdle when it comes to a decent narrative. Want good science fiction? High Life is the 2019 movie to go to. 

Overall Score: 6/10

Film Review: The Lost City of Z

"I Know This Is A Sacrifice For All Of Us But It Will Be Worth It..."

At the prestigious age of the mid 40's, director James Gray is ashamedly a director of whose previous work I have to admit hasn't drifted across my attentive senses, with 2008's Two Lovers and 2013's The Immigrant arguably being his most critically acclaimed releases but too films which both seem to have suffered from a limited exposure platform, something of which cannot be said for The Lost City of Z, Gray's latest cinematic adventure based upon the book of the same name by author David Grann in 2009, which alongside featuring a cast including Sons of Anarchy star, Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller and the latest incarnation of Peter Parker himself, Tom Holland, is most definitely his highest-profile release to date. Focusing on the true story of archaeologist and explorer, Percy Fawcett, The Lost City of Z is a mixed bag of a movie, a beautifully designed epic which spans from the beginning of the 20th century to the fallout of the Second World War but too a movie which suffers from a sagging narrative which seems to have conflicted notions regarding where exactly it wants to go and what it desires to be.

When it comes to the positives of Gray's latest adventure, there is no questioning the quality and detailed approach the filmmakers have taken in regards to set locations and design, with everything from the clothing attire to the stunning vast plains of the amazonian jungle being a superb feat, particularly upon the big screen. Unfortunately for the movie as an entire body of work however, the cinematography relies so heavily on the element of darkness throughout that sometimes it comes across as a monumental struggle to actually appreciate the lengths to which such the filmmakers have gone due in order to create such a thorough and finely tuned cinematic world. Perhaps the most telling weakness of the film however is the seriously unbalanced pacing, with the film taking almost an age to really get going and into the realm of something actually exciting, for it to then swiftly fall straight back into an element of tedium in a concluding act which doesn't exactly offer rousing levels of closure, begging the immortal question of, "what exactly was that all about?". If you decide that 140 minutes of scenery admiration is what you desire most about cinema, The Lost City of Z is arguably the film for you but for those who seek something of a narrative and sense of enjoyment, James Gray's latest is more of a miss than a direct hit.

Overall Score: 5/10