This film feels like it had a great deal of potential and promise, but ultimately it neither lives up to this nor does it epically fail. In very simplistic terms, this film is very average. Ad Astra is a space film about an astronaut, played Brad Pitt, who goes deep into the solar system when it is thought that his lost father, played by Tommy Lee Jones, is carrying out experiments which pose catastrophic threats. If I was going to tell you the plot of the film, that previous sentence is pretty much it. I’m writing this review a few days after I saw it, and I did struggle to recall the key plot points. That is because not much happens in Ad Astra.

Much of this film revolves around Brad Pitt simply travelling throughout space. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed these parts a lot, at times. The visual effects in Ad Astra are amongst the best I’ve ever seen in a space film, and this is potentially the best looking film of 2019. This is a very realistic depiction of what space travel might look like which is potentially – quite boring. Think about it, if you spend weeks or months travelling, with nothing to do and, at times, on your own it would be a draining and tedious experience. I too felt these emotions, and I don’t mean this as a direct knock on the film. But watching people travel somewhere and do virtually nothing else, is hardly going to be that enthralling.

Brad Pitt kills it in this role. I think he’s really made himself into an elite actor now and he carries great presence throughout. Following on from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), he must be thrilled with the year he’s had personally. Pitt is also a producer on this film, and I have a lot of respect for the projects he’s been involved in behind the scenes in recent years ranging from Vice (2018), to Moonlight (2016), to 12 Years a Slave (2013). This man is on fire and it’s time to recognise that if his name is attached to anything, in whatever capacity, then we should be excited. It’s easy to lose track of someone as big as Brad Pitt and view them simply as a celebrity. But in Ad Astra, he gives a good performance and I never doubted for one second he was the best astronaut the US Space Command had to offer.

The first 10 minutes of this film were pretty strong. It’s set up to be Apocalypse Now (1979) in space pretty much and Tommy Lee Jones is the Marlon Brando. But it fails to kick on and doesn’t give much to chew on. The story, here, is very weak and every film should be able to make you think of at least five scenes where something important or interesting happened. Honestly, I’d struggle to get to two and that requires some sort of Bikram Yoga stretch. More time should have been devoted to explaining situations or adding dialogue between characters, instead of on someone floating in a space shuttle for a few minutes randomly.

I won’t give it away, but this film essentially has a sort of message behind it. And, frankly, it falls flat on its face trying to get this across. It’s never earned nor do we really care by the end. There’s not much pay off in this two hour film, and at times you expect a twist to happen in one way or another. You might think it will zig but has the potential to zag. Frustratingly, it does neither.

Max Richter’s score for this film, is similarly stuck in limbo. At times, it built tension and pulled me in when I myself began to drift. But it never kicks up a gear when it feels appropriate to do so. Instead, it remains at a comfortable level and does not go all out when I feel it could have. Indeed, this is perhaps the best summation of this film in general. They play it safe far too often, to the point it borders on boring.

This isn’t a bad film by any means. There are some redeeming qualities, namely Brad Pitt’s performance and the stunning visuals. But the writing and the directing let the team down in this case. There’s not enough bang for your buck, and they aren’t able to pull off the things they wanted to. Granted, not every space film needs a dramatic docking sequence or crazy space battles, but there needs to be something. That’s the issue, this film is a whole lot of nothing, unfortunately.

Sadly, this film smacks of mediocrity which may be the worst possible verdict it can get. I didn’t like it, I didn’t dislike it. I simply forgot about it and didn’t care for it.