Brad Pitt shines in pulse-raising space trip Ad Astra

The unique Ad Astra is, by turns, a cerebral and compelling experience. Don’t go thinking you’ll be getting anything like Matt Damon’s The Martian. Strap yourself in for a journey that will raise your pulse and expand your mind when least expected.

With Ad Astra, we are presented with a serenely captivating work of science fiction, albeit one where the fiction heavily outweighs the science.

Keeping this disparity in relative balance is yet another economical and deftly convincing lead performance from Brad Pitt. He plays Major Roy McBride, a veteran astronaut facing the most dangerous mission of his career.

The movie takes place in a future where space travel to the Moon has been commercialised, and the rest of the solar system could yet follow suit.

However, increasingly powerful energy surges from the planet Neptune may not only reduce Earth’s reach across this new frontier, but the lifespan of all mankind as well.

To identify and isolate the threat at hand, McBride must make contact with a lost explorer who disappeared in the same region as the surges — his father Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones).

These are but the bare bones of a rather meaty story set to be fleshed out by Ad Astra before its two hours are up.

Brad Pitt is deftly convincing in his lead performance in Ad Astra. Picture: Twentieth Century Fox

The movie revels in the advantages presented by its near-future setting, where the developments in technology depicted seem (kind of) achievable and unfathomable at the same time.

There is no better example than Ad Astra’s riveting opening action sequence, where McBride is working high atop a communications antenna that stretches from the ground to the outer reaches of our atmosphere.

One of those mysterious energy surges hits the metallic structure, and those unlucky enough to be up there suddenly find themselves with nothing to hold on to.

Soon enough, McBride has no choice but to join his fellow workers in a freefalling mass exodus back towards terra firma.

This is only the start of the brave new world(s) Ad Astra intends to show you.

Soon enough, you will fly business class with McBride to the Moon, which has turned into a slightly tacky commuter hub and shopping mall. (Except for the dark side of the Moon, which is partially controlled by cutthroat pirate miners.)

Donald Sutherland and Sean Blakemore. Picture: AP

Then McBride boards a government craft for Mars, where he will transmit a message designed to ascertain whether his father is alive, and therefore knows anything about what is happening near Neptune.

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This unique movie is, by turns, a cerebral and compelling experience. Don’t go thinking you’ll be getting anything like Matt Damon’s The Martian.

Try imagining 2001: A Space Odyssey delicately dovetailing with Apocalypse Now instead, then strap yourself in for a journey equally adept at raising pulses and expanding minds when least expected.

AD ASTRA (M)

Director: James Gray (We Own the Night)

Starring: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Liv Tyler, Donald Sutherland, Ruth Negga.

Rating: ****

An open space, in danger of closing soon