Ad Astra (James Gray, 2019)

In the vein of Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian and Arrival, Ad Astra represents another opportunity taken by the school of higher-brow Hollywood filmmakers to use the medium of hard sci-fi as a vehicle to explore human relationships, fears and hopes while knowing that the trappings of the genre will guarantee bums on seats for the space thrills. In many ways, they are all aspiring to match the impact of 2001 in both spheres and all fail in one way or another, though some do better than others. Ad Astra, which sees Brad Pitt as an astronaut struggling to come to terms with his repressed anger at the father who disappeared years before while on an obsessive quest to search for intelligent life, and is then detailed to find him, falls on the right side of the balance of striving for emotional content and gratuitous action. However, the key word here is 'striving' and this means that it's as stifled as Pitt until the last phases of his quest. Hence when he does finally reach the goal, it doesn't feel as if effort has really been made to take the viewer there with him. Sincere and ambitious, but ultimately liable to engender indifference.

6/10