A sci-fi masterpiece – / Movie

Two years ago, screenwriter and director James Gray took the epic and true story of life The lost city of Z and turned it into a dark treatise of obsession and its engulfing dangers. His latest film, the history of science fiction big budget Ad Astra, is as gigantic a canvas as it has had to work so far, with one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Again Ad Astra is just as haunting, emotionally unexpected and insightful as Lost City was, making it a remarkable companion and one of the most thought-out and captivating genre movies of the years.

Brad Pitt is interpreted by Roy McBride, a leading astronaut of the US space command program in "the near future". McBride's reputation precedes him for two reasons: he is known for his extreme calm, even in dangerous situations, and he is the son of an iconic astronaut (Tommy Lee Jones), whose work has spurred countless explore the space. But after a powerful electric shock explodes over the Earth's atmosphere, Roy learns that his father, who believes himself dead, could be alive and behind this surge, which could make humanity disappear in an instant . Roy's job is to reach out to his father, based in Neptune.

There is much more than a little Joseph Conrad Heart of darkness and Coppola Apocalypse Now in Roy's journey in the darkness Ad Astra, amplified thanks to Pitt's dark narrative. (Other people can make the connection with the work of Terrence Malick because of this narration, but the Coppola comparison holds much higher.) While Roy is discreetly supernatural on the surface, the narrative emphasizes its disused and alienated nature. Through fragments of irregular flashbacks, we see that Roy has pushed his wife (Liv Tyler, in a brief role) and is terrified by one of the most common fears that a man may have: becoming his dad. Pitt's work here is difficult. Although Roy's strong but silent exterior is on the brink, he is not as expressive as the others. Pitt, however, is more than capable, delivering performances of unexpected depth and grace. People have just defended his work in Quentin Tarantino's film Once upon a time in Hollywoodbut Brad Pitt's best performance in 2019 is in Ad Astra.

It's a good thing too, because Ad Astra is mainly a one-man show – there are a number of other actors, including Jones, Tyler, Donald Sutherland (as a former friend of Roy's father), and Ruth Negga, but Pitt is at the screen almost throughout the movie. Although he continues to make an extremely attractive figure, Pitt's work here suggests that he has not lost his ability to be one of the most exciting and audacious actors of the past 40 years. His laconic work in OUATIH was extremely nice but with Ad Astrahe pushes himself emotionally in a way he has not tried for a very long time. Because as often as Roy is alone, the more time we spend with him, the more he becomes emotionally and viscerally frayed. This film is not only Pitt's best work in 2019, but probably his best performance in decades.

And it's sorted by Gray (who co-wrote the movie with Ethan Gross). As The lost city of Z proved that he was able to mix emotional interiority with an expansive film-making epic, Ad Astra strengthens one's ability to work in a genre style with remarkable ease. Work with director of photography Hoyte van Hoytema (who collaborated with Christopher Nolan on Dunkirk and InterstellarGray is able to recognize the best examples of the genre while creating breathtaking new images. Sometimes, when we see characters floating in the depths of space, there is a striking mix of what Gray quotes (like 2001: The Space Odyssey) and what he creates. The credit also goes to Kevin Thompson, the creator of film production, for sowing slight allusions to what the future might contain – for example, paying for items at the fingertips – without film a comic presentation of futuristic costumes and technologies. .

Ad Astra It's also the kind of anomaly that people continue to ask in 2019: it's an adult film. Yes, the kind of science fiction allows Gray to intervene in certain action sequences that go against Roy's dark and gloomy interior. (There is no detail except knowing that Roy must, at different times in the film, face the pirates of the moon and bloodthirsty monkeys, and all this makes perfect sense.) Ad Astra is the kind of average budget (it only costs about $ 80 million, which is incredible, considering the effects and practical work so credible) that the public wants to see between gigantic superproductions that clutter the multiplexes. It's almost as shocking that the film is released by Disney – through 20th Century Fox, which cleared the film before it was purchased – is as shocking as the film itself.

Ad Astra profitable on the vast promise of James Gray The lost city of Z. It's an intelligent and exciting epic of the soul that offers one of the major shows of the year, from an actor who has been underrated even though he never lost his star power. From its tense and vertiginous opening sequence to its deep and emotional finale, Ad Astra is an exciting character study posing as a sci-fi adventure. This is one of the best movies of 2019.

/ Movie Rating: 9 out of 10

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