Movie: Ad Astra (2019)***

Totally illogical story: If this is the future and humans have been in space for a while, why were so many things fraught with human technical error?

• Why would you try to pass through a war zone in an unarmored vehicle?
• Why was the captain of the Mars ship so panicky? Was that his first official flight?
• Why did they continue to go deeper into the distress-call ship if no one was responding?
• Can anyone explain the baboons?
• Why did they send Brad Pitt's character all the way to Mars to essentially send out voicemails to his father?
• Why did they send a son to contact the father he hadn't seen for over 30 years and expect the son not to have an emotional reaction?
• Why did the nuclear warhead crew freak out and try to fight Brad Pitt's character and essentially kill themselves?
• Why did Brad Pitt's character not predict his dad was going to try to get away?
• Why were the tablets and personal devices made of clear glass? So easy to lose!

Once you get past the illogical errors in story and set-up, you can see a beautifully shot movie that was well acted. Brad Pitt carried the story so much that those illogicalities were bits of dust on an otherwise clean floor. His character is known for being able to control his reactions so that he remains calm, and able to make clear decisions even in the many high-stress situations that come up during the film. Tommy Lee Jones plays the mentally-fraught-and-obsessive-to the-point-of-murder father, and is impressive even in the few on-screen minutes we get to see him. I would argue that the soundtrack was also amazing in getting across the emotions and emotional control of Brad Pitt's character as well as setting up those high-stress and anxiety situations. Well done.

I give this movie three stars*** on the masterpiece end of the scale. Its good in many ways, but I was lost and all-too focused on the illogicalities. It was fun, but I don't have to watch it again.

I streamed this movie from Amazon.