Ad Astra: Brad Pitt stars in James Gray’s disappointingly flat science fiction adventure.

US/ 124 mins./ Cert 12A

Director: James Gray

Cast: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, Liv Tyler, Ruth Negga.

The great science fiction writer, Arthur C Clarke, once remarked: “Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.” The quest to discover whether there is intelligent life in outer space is Ad Astra’s central premise. However, like most sci-fi, the film’s out-of-this-world narrative is used to explore philosophical, social and psychological themes much closer to home. Using the generic tropes of sci-fi, Ad Astra presents a Freudian examination of the father and son relationship between Tommy Lee Jones’ H Clifford McBride, and his son, Major Roy McBride (Brad Pitt).

The film begins spectacularly, with a genuinely heart-stopping sequence which takes place on a colossal space tower. The construction is responsible for intercepting any alien messages received from outer space and Pitt has been tasked with repairing one of the tower’s antennae which has been damaged by one of the devastating power surges which are threatening life in our solar system. As Pitt makes his way out to the antennae, the camera sweeps dramatically over his head to gaze dizzyingly down to the Earth thousands of feet below. Vertigo sufferers have been warned.

As he examines the antennae, another surge causes an explosion, throwing Pitt from the tower and sending him plummeting through the atmosphere towards the ground. It is a cinematically bold and brilliantly executed moment but the problem with the remainder of the film is that it never regains the heights of its vertiginous opening. The action sequences which follow, including a pirate ambush on the Moon, seem pale in comparison. Ad Astra can’t seem to make up its mind whether it wants to be an intellectual slice of sci-fi in the mould of 2001 or Solaris or an action–packed space adventure. Ultimately, it fails to be either. The film owes more to Gravity, than either Kubrick’s or Tarkovsky’s masterpieces, but it fails to capture the emotional intensity and sense of awe of Alfonso Cuarón’s superior picture.

The source of the electronic surges is located to the antimatter power source of the Lima Project; an expedition led by Clifford McBride to the outermost regions of the solar system to search for extra-terrestrial life. No communication has been received from the expedition for 16 years since it reached Neptune. With the authorities believing that McBride is still alive, Pitt accepts the mission to travel to Mars to try to contact the Lima Project, forcing him to face the prospect that his heroic father has turned renegade.

With a possible confrontation with his father looming, the film becomes a kind of Oedipal Apocalypse Now in outer space with Pitt’s voiceover manifestly indebted to Martin Sheen’s in Coppola’s Vietnam classic. The critic, Mark Kermode, has voiced some concern at Ad Astra’s philosophical over-exposition, but I found this to be less of a problem than the clumsy nature of the script which Pitt, Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland as Colonel Pruitt, and an underused Liv Tyler as Pitt’s wife, wrestle valiantly to overcome. Pitt is very impressive and the psychological tests which he must pass after each mission is an ingenious device which succeeds in establishing the emotional inner-state of his character’s journey into the heart of darkness. Much of the remainder of the script, however, veers perilously close to cliché, resulting in a superficial exploration of the existential and psychological themes which the film is attempting to address. For a film with such an epic scale of ambition, Ad Astra comes across as being curiously tame.

Ad Astra looks magnificent, with dramatic special effects and spectacular cinematography. The lunar and Martian scenes are realistically conveyed and the deep space sequences, especially the shots of the rings of Neptune are stunning. The film has its moments but adds nothing especially original to the genre. Apart from its manifest visual elegance and that thrilling opening sequence, Ad Astra is disappointingly lacking any real wow factor.