'Ad Astra' with B. Pitt
 

We saw it this morning - high expectations. Do not want to ruin for potential viewers, but I base most movies on "Give Me A Break" mutterings by myself.
This one got more than 18, mainly during the second half.

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes 83%, Audience 42%.


Ad Astra (2019) - Rotten Tomatoes

It made me feel like my head was being pinched in a vise.

Not much dialogue in it. Of course, it was only Pitt most of the time, with nobody to talk to so I guess he tried to tell the story with lots of facial expressions, seen through the face-plate on his helmet. He was trying to emote all the angst or whatever, I guess.

Too many holes in the plot.

Lots of space ships and stations, and a few people, too, floating around in space, on and on and on, with a tether here and a tether there for added drama. Special effects like audiences have seen for decades. (yawn)

I think it was supposed to be existential or symbolic or thought-provoking or some such thing. But I sure did not see much depth — although I did take a short nap so maybe I missed something.

On the plus side, it was occasionally pretty. Good special effects (nice weightlessness work), good digital effects (though everybody does good digital effects anymore) and decent-looking spaceship designs.

On the negative side, everything else. Despite being painfully earnest, it wraps itself in the guise of a "hard" science fiction story, meaning that the science should be accurate or at least plausible. And it just isn't. If there was a science adviser for this film, he or she was either completely ignored by the director or should be banned from ever being a science adviser again. There was just so much bad about the science element of the story that I would have to spend more time writing it out than I spent watching the film and it's just not worth it.

On the other plus side, at least I only spent $5 seeing it.

I suppose the $5 is the good side of this? Was it crowded?

It was a 3 PM Tuesday show and yes, it was fairly crowded. I'd guess between 80 and 90% full. When the show was over, people shuffled out with about half near me muttering things like, "What was THAT supposed to be about?" and the other half being more openly negative. Too bad. I was looking forward to seeing this one as I do love me a good scifi film. I guess I'll have to go back and watch 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Martian or something to restore my faith in the genre.

Brad Pit plays has the same expressions over and over no matter what roll he plays

Absolutely love The Martian and hope that they make his book Artemis into a movie. This is the work of Andy Weir who wrote The Martian .

The $5 movies do seem to be a lot more crowded. At least, the non open captioned ones.

Ad Astra (2019) - Rotten Tomatoes


I saw it this afternoon with maybe an audience of 16 at the Barnstorm Theater. Paid for with a coupon I got for donating platelets at One Blood last week.

Loved it. Hard to understand. But worth the effort.

My not liking it wasn't from not understanding it. It was from how stupid I understood it to be. Still, glad you enjoyed it. Movies would be boring if the same things pleased everybody.

There were some parts that made me think "Yea, right! like that would really happen".

I was wondering if this movie was worth seeing, and after reading the reviews, I think maybe not. It sounds like it's all Pitt.

It is a great deal of Brad Pitt. Pretty much everyone else but Tommy Lee Jones-- who plays the Brad Pitt character's father-- only have small parts.

Thanks for all of the reviews, looks like we're going to pass on Ad Astra.