Not that I needed another melancholy philosophical trip into space after First Man [2018]. What was that saying about looking into the abyss? Well, you don’t get any deeper than deep space, even if you’re doing another riff on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
So, yeah, we’re in that area with Brad Pitt’s very stoic spaceman Roy McBride given the mission of reaching out to a lost hero somewhere in the orbit of Neptune who may have gone off the rails. Said hero, however, turns out to be his absent dad, H Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) who has put career and exploration of space way ahead of any familial responsibilities. Therefore, along the way, and thanks to the use of voiceovers, Roy is having a bit of a crisis of conscience. Questions are pondered with not many answers forthcoming.
The action is more front loaded thanks to the threat Roy has to deal with. The movie basically starts with a mysterious “death ray” from deep space, crippling what looks like a space elevator where Ray was working. Then there’s getting from Earth to the Moon and then to Mars. Beyond that, there further into space we go, the slower the movie gets, because, really… it is a loooong way to Neptune. Movie-wise… space travel isn’t quite that long.
Still, the visuals are amazing and even director James Gray has endeavoured to present space travel as realistic as possible. He pulls that one off quite well although I still have issues with the depiction of gravity on Mars, and particularly the Moon. Granted, the action on the Moon is pretty cool.
Gray does well with the direction although the story is fairly pacey. His partner in crime and lead star does much of the heavy lifting in keeping the movie fairly engrossing while there is a slew of ‘guest stars’ for him to interact with. Sure, they may have name recognition and ‘star power’ but not many hang around for very long, ships that Roy simply pass by in his journey into night.
As a whole, this is a kind of throwback to those thoughtful science fiction flicks, the kind that give you food for thought… in this case, is this the kind of space administration we really want? Like some kind of military force, they appear to only want emotionless robotic humans who only follow orders without question to work for them. Or a charismatic charming Brad Pitt like spaceman whose heart-rate will never rise above 80 bpm even in the moment of extreme crisis.
Rating: 🚀🚀🚀1/2 /5
Directed by James Gray
Written by James Gary & Ethan Gross
Stars Brad Pitt, Loren Dean, John Ortiz, with Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Donald Sutherland, and Liv Tyler
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Berning Away 