{"id":1697,"date":"2019-10-08T15:00:39","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T21:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=1697"},"modified":"2019-10-06T16:09:17","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T22:09:17","slug":"movie-ad-astra-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2019\/10\/08\/movie-ad-astra-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Ad Astra (2019)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin-top: 0in;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><b><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/c\/cb\/Ad_Astra_-_film_poster.jpg\" alt=\"Ad Astra\" width=\"220\" height=\"326\" \/>Ad Astra<\/b><\/span><br \/>\nYear: 2019<br \/>\nRating: PG-13<br \/>\nLength: 123 minutes \/ 2.05 hours<\/p>\n<p>I wasn\u2019t entirely sure what to expect with\u00a0<em>Ad Astra<\/em>\u00a0(2019). The trailers I had seen made it seem like it was an action-filled space adventure akin to\u00a0<em>Interstellar<\/em>\u00a0(2014) or\u00a0<em>Gravity<\/em>\u00a0(2013). While it did handle all the outer space issues in a somewhat scientifically accurate way,\u00a0<em>Ad Astra<\/em>\u00a0was a much slower movie than I thought it would be. In fact, I\u2019d probably compare it more to films like\u00a0<em>2001: A Space Odyssey<\/em>\u00a0(1968) for its almost plodding pacing. The real trick is that the plot of Ad Astra is basically an outer space version of Joseph Conrad\u2019s\u00a0<em>Heart of Darkness<\/em>, of which\u00a0<em>Apocalypse Now!<\/em>\u00a0(1979) is perhaps the most notable movie adaptation.<\/p>\n<p><em>Ad Astra<\/em> does get credit for the beauty of its outer space environment. The settings felt massive in scale and intimate in their proximity. Each portion and waypoint of the journey seemed precisely how I would picture them eventually occurring in our not-to-distant future. Even if some aspects of the film were somewhat confusing in their \u201cartsiness,\u201d they still were neat to observe. Additionally, Brad Pitt\u2019s performance was subdued but had the emotional weight to accompany the main character\u2019s growth throughout the film.<\/p>\n<p>Considering that\u00a0<em>Ad Astra<\/em>\u00a0is basically a mashup of\u00a0<em>2001: A Space Odyssey<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>Apocalypse Now!<\/em>\u00a0, I\u2019m a little disappointed that it didn\u2019t take more cues from its scientifically accurate brethren like (a notable example being\u00a0<em>The Martian<\/em> (2015)). More than once, I questioned the logic behind certain actions and wondered why bits of the most important science was mostly ignored to make the plot move forward. Concepts like antimatter, communication time latencies, and the effects of prolonged space travel were either explained with hand waving, a montage or never addressed at all.<\/p>\n<p>An outer space\u00a0<em>Heart of Darkness<\/em>\u00a0adaptation with some pacing issues, I give\u00a0<em>Ad Astra<\/em> 3.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/> <\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ad Astra Year: 2019 Rating: PG-13 Length: 123 minutes \/ 2.05 hours I wasn\u2019t entirely sure what to expect with\u00a0Ad Astra\u00a0(2019). The trailers I had seen made it seem like it was an action-filled space adventure akin to\u00a0Interstellar\u00a0(2014) or\u00a0Gravity\u00a0(2013). While it did handle all the outer space issues in a somewhat scientifically accurate way,\u00a0Ad Astra\u00a0was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,2],"tags":[2033,1576,2032,2035,2012,141,2034,142,13,8,138],"class_list":["post-1697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-0-stars","category-movie","tag-2001-a-space-odyssey","tag-1576","tag-ad-astra","tag-apocalypse-now","tag-brad-pitt","tag-gravity","tag-heart-of-darkness","tag-interstellar","tag-movie","tag-review","tag-the-martian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1700,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions\/1700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}