Movie Ad Astra

[TheGreatBarryB]

New sci fi from James Gray starring Brad Pitt. Got good feedback at Venice Film Festival.

Opens in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to this one.

 

[exe ex machina]

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Probably the last big budget movie made by Fox before it became a Disney brand.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Not as good as High Life I heard.

 

[Mayestro]

Not as good as High Life I heard.

I can’t comment on Ad Astra but High Life’s sets were a little laughable and some of the ideas just odd. There was probably a good movie in there if they’d spent a bit more money on it.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

I can’t comment on Ad Astra but High Life’s sets were a little laughable and some of the ideas just odd. There was probably a good movie in there if they’d spent a bit more money on it.

I liked High Life. Probably will never watch it again but I liked it. Imagine this movie has a much bigger budget.

 

[BlakeyNoFlakey]

Not as good as High Life I heard.

High Life was anything but good IMO.

 

[STFU Donnie]

I must admit I'd never heard of High Life. So I checked out its wiki page - this is included in the spoiler tag. The whole thing sounds like a Monty Python piss-take! How else are we to take sentences such as:

------- commits suicide by burying himself in the garden; and

When ------- grows to be a teenager, they encounter another ship similar to their own. ------- boards the ship but finds it carrying stray dogs who have survived by eating one another.

And believe me, there are many, many more!

Spoiler

A group of criminals serving death sentences are sent on an alternative-energy-finding mission in space to extract energy from a black hole. Each prisoner is treated as a guinea pig by Dr. Dibs, who is fixated on creating a child through artificial insemination, but has yet to find success. Sexual activity between prisoners is prohibited. The ship is equipped with "The Box," a device obsessively used by the crew to masturbate. Dibs murdered her own children and husband, and Monte, the only celibate prisoner, rejects Dibs' sexual advances. Monte is serving a life sentence for killing his friend over his dog as a child. Monte's only friend on the ship is Tcherny, who is drawn to the garden because it reminds him of Earth.

The captain, Chandra, develops leukemia due to radiation and has a stroke before being euthanized by Dibs. Pregnant prisoner Elektra also dies, along with her newborn infant. One night, male prisoner Ettore binds a woman named Boyse and her roommate Mink to their beds and attempts to rape the former. Nansen, the pilot, intervenes, but Ettore overpowers her. Monte arrives and throws Ettore off Boyse, beating him but stopping short of killing him. When Monte leads Boyse away to be treated, Mink stabs Ettore to death in the hallway. Dibs begins doubling the amount of sedatives each prisoner receives, later sneaking into Monte's cell and raping him while he is sedated. She then injects his semen into Boyse, and she produces a healthy child, but Monte is unaware that it is his.

As the ship approaches the black hole, Nansen prepares to take a shuttle into the black hole. Unbeknownst to the other prisoners, Boyse kills Nansen with a shovel and takes her place. The shuttle travels through a molecular cloud that alters its trajectory and causes it to dive into the black hole where Boyse explodes due to spaghettification. Mink later attacks Dibs and injures her but is then killed by Monte. A fatally injured Dibs informs Monte that the child is his before ejecting herself into space. Tcherny commits suicide by burying himself in the garden. Monte, now the only surviving prisoner, disposes of the bodies from each cryochamber into space.

Monte struggles to raise the baby whom he has named Willow. At one stage he attempts to make repairs on the ship, but her hysterical cries through his helmet speakers causes him to drop a tool and lose it in space. When Willow grows to be a teenager, they encounter another ship similar to their own. Monte boards the ship but finds it carrying stray dogs who have survived by eating one another. Willow begs Monte to bring one back, but he refuses, intimating contamination could potentially kill them. The ship grows closer to the black hole, and Willow convinces Monte to board a shuttle with her and journey through it. Shortly after they enter the black hole, Monte takes Willow's hand as they approach a massive yellow light source, the black hole's accretion disk.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Don't knock the

Spoiler: High Life spoiler

**** box

Movie - High Life

Good? Bad? Other? Just watched it. I liked it overall. About a group of people on a spaceship. Reminded me of 2001: A Space Odyssey more than once. On Blu-ray in France now...

www.bigfooty.com

 

[Bomberboyokay]

It was pretty good. If you've seen The Expanse it feels set about a century before that so closer to our present day. Never as epic/wacky as Interstellar - it's set in our solar system - but a mix between that and the explicitly weird movie High Life. A smidgen too 'Hollywood' but that's probably what people will like about it; you always know what's going on, it's not trying to confuse you or make you second guess what you're seeing.

Spoiler: Mild spoilers

Liked how the top space brass on Earth were all clean cut, military looking but by the time you get out to Mars they wear their hair how they want and there's less need for show.

4 stars.

 

[Frank Bunn]

Good movie. Terrible ending.

5/10.

 

[Strange Cat]

Need to watch it again with subtitles but I liked the concept, just felt that the execution was a tad off.

6/10

 

[DaveyBoy123]

Just watched this. I liked it well enough, but felt it did fall away to the end a little.

However, am I the only one that got major 'Apocalypse Now' vibes from it? The way Brad Pitt's thoughts were spoken out (almost always asking questions)... The way it was a journey with a number of stops culminating to a final meeting with a (once-)revered veteran who may be dead or may have gone bat$hit crazy.

 

[Roobs321]

It was my favourite film of last year (only The Nightingale came anywhere near it for me). The fully interpretive, thematically loaded screenplay, the contained Pitt performance, the typically refreshing and simply grounded sophistication of Gray's genre summaries, the beautiful Max Richter score, some of my fave Space Cowboys in TLJ & the Donald, my lifelong fascination with Neptune, my deep love of Joseph Conrad and some of the related films given homage here, it was all very on brand for me and delivered handsomely.

 

[TheGreatBarryB]

Just watched this. I liked it well enough, but felt it did fall away to the end a little.

However, am I the only one that got major 'Apocalypse Now' vibes from it? The way Brad Pitt's thoughts were spoken out (almost always asking questions)... The way it was a journey with a number of stops culminating to a final meeting with a (once-)revered veteran who may be dead or may have gone bat$hit crazy.

Yeah it’s been mentioned quite a bit in reviews, still was surprised just how close it resembles it. Even getting on board with boat/ship with ill fated crew.

 

[Registered User]

This is on 9GO tonight at 7:30. Grouse

 

[Spiritof82]

Good movie. Terrible ending.

5/10.

It does have half of the Space Cowboys team in it so that's a bonus, just needed a special appearance from Clint (James Garner had died when it was made)