Ad Astra

What does Ad Astra have in common with Spider-Man and WALL-E? In Ad Astra, Brad Pitt's character survives while hanging off the side of a rocket during launch like Spider-Man in Avengers Infinity War and WALL-E. This also gives you an idea of the realism of Ad Astra. It definitely falls in the category of bad-science movie, and I'm afraid it's also just a bad movie. I had a bad feeling when I saw the scene in the trailer for Ad Astra with astronauts shooting at each other from lunar rovers. The setup of Ad Astra is that a space mission headed by Brad Pitt's father (Tommy Lee Jones) is sent to Neptune, which beyond the Heliosphere (not), and where it will be easier to contact intelligent life (not), while taking high resolution pictures of exoplanets (not). It has something to do with antimatter (not) and somehow that creates a blast of cosmic rays that knocks out power on the Earth (not).

The rest of the plot makes very little sense unless you realize that someone apparently thought this movie needed more action, so instead of just going to Neptune directly from Earth, Pitt flies to the Moon, drives by lunar rover to the back side of the Moon (this is thousands of miles) while fending off Moon pirates, blasts off to Mars, then launches to Neptune while hanging on the side of the rocket. Then there are some Gravity-esque scenes while he transfers from his ship to another in Neptune orbit. Pitt needs to get from one ship orbiting Neptune to another so he launches himself using a rotating radar antenna and flies through Neptune's rings carrying a shield like Captain America.

There are some nice performances in this movie but they don't get much screen time. Donald Sutherland plays an astronaut who comes out of retirement to help Pitt, and Ruth Negga plays the head of the Mars base. And, of course, Tommy Lee Jones is Pitt's absent father, and Liv Tyler is his ex-wife. They are all good but barely register before they die or disappear. Natasha Lyonne has a funny cameo as an administrator on Mars. I love Brad Pitt, but go see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. In Ad Astra, he's just doing that little frown of his all the way through the movie with lots of extreme close-ups.

And I haven't even mentioned the space monkeys...