ReelBob: ‘Ad Astra’ ★★★½

By Bob Bloom

“Ad Astra” is more a meditative journey through the solar system than a standard space opera as one might expect from the title, which is Latin for “to the stars.”

Brad Pitt stars as Space Command Major Roy McBride, who continually battles to keep his emotions under control and prove to his superiors — and the computers that daily monitor his psychological fitness — that he is at all times pragmatic and invulnerable to mistakes.

It’s all a façade, of course. McBride is a churning cauldron of doubts, fears, anger and pain.

But he has taught himself to maintain his composure, even in the direst of situations, as demonstrated during a potentially fatal accident in which he reacts calmly.

When a series of energy pulses start striking the Earth, creating havoc and thousands of deaths, McBride’s Space Command leaders believe the bursts may be related to the Lima Project, which had been headed by McBride’s father, H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones), a legendary astronaut whose mission was to discover other intelligent life.

The Lima Project took the elder McBride and his crew to Neptune, where contact with them was lost.

For more than 20 years, everyone believed the project crew members were dead.

But the bursts cause a re-evaluation of that premise, and the younger McBride is assigned to travel to Mars to attempt making radio contact with his father, who Space Command now believes is alive and may be responsible for the disturbances on Earth.

The Earth-bound officials hope McBride can reach his father and halt the cataclysmic events.

“Ad Astra” is an existential voyage, a character study of a man who, abandoned by his father, carries his emotional fitness as a badge of honor.

On the outside, McBride is tight-lipped. He reminds you of Ryan Gosling’s portrayal of Neil Armstrong in “First Man”; that same cold and analytical demeanor that leaves no room for any close attachments.

McBride and his father have much in common. The younger man has shut himself off from the world, while the older one deliberately left it.

“Ad Astra” resonates because it deals with men who crave solitude. In that way, it is similar to director James Gray’s 2017 feature, “The Lost City of Z,” in which British explorer Percy Fawcett is obsessed with traveling to the Amazon to find evidence of a previously unknown advanced civilization, much to the detriment to his home life.

One of “Ad Astra’s” drawbacks is that it introduces a few ideas that seem to go nowhere. A conspiracy of silence — a coverup — is hinted at concerning the elder McBride, but it is never fully developed.

The movie is not so much about discovering if McBride is alive or dead — or is even responsible for the dangerous situation back on Earth.

The film is more a father-and-son story and a voyage of reconnection and reconciliation.

And Pitt’s performance is the core of that trek. It’s uncluttered and understated on the surface, but Pitt allows several glimpses to the ache under the skin.

This is Pitt’s second outstanding turn this year, an interesting dichotomy to his cool and self-confident stuntman Cliff Booth in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”

“Ad Astra” goes deeper into the human experience and psyche than it does into space. And Gray, who cowrote the screenplay with Ethan Gross, gives you the option of deciding which is more exhausting and dangerous.

“Ad Astra” is like an extraterrestrial “Apocalypse Now,” a short hop into an examination of the soul and of isolation that is an impressive feature, which — the deeper you travel in space — the more tenuous your grip on reality becomes.

The movie is a technical marvel, with visually stunning set pieces and a musical score that complements the overall mood.

It is an undertaking you may have to revisit to catch all the nuances of Gray’s story and Pitt’s performance.

The pace of “Ad Astra” is deliberate, but not slow. It is intelligent, gut-wrenching and mesmerizing — with a heart as big as the sun.

I am a founding member of the Indiana Film Journalists Association. My reviews appear at ReelBob (reelbob.com) and Rottentomatoes (www.rottentomatoes.com). I also review Blu-rays and DVDs. I can be reached by email at bobbloomjc@gmail.com or on Twitter @ReelBobBloom. Links to my reviews can be found on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

AD ASTRA
3½ stars
(PG-13), violence, bloody images, language