Ad Astra                               4 stars

Ad Astra is last year’s emotional and grand science fiction movie that starred Brad Pitt as an astronaut sent on a mission to make contact with a rogue astronaut who is threatening the solar system.  It is a quiet contemplative film while also containing moments of intense action.  Past movies it has been compared to include Apocalypse Now and 2001: A Space Odyssey.  It opens with a thrilling scene where astronaut Roy McBride (Pitt) is helping in the construction of an enormous space antenna when disaster strikes sending him hurtling toward earth.  Later, he learns that a series of electrical disruptions may be due to a lost space mission sent to Neptune twenty years earlier that was commended by Roy’s father, Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones).  The Space Command has decided that Roy is the best suited to try to make contact with the rogue mission.  The movie has a realistic feel to it and the events in space seem to be plausible.  Private interests seem to have taken hold on the moon that even leads to space pirates with raiding parties!  The movie really succeeds with the quiet performance of Pitt aided by a fine Tommy Lee Jones.  There is also a small role for Donald Sutherland that is carried off well.  So, see Ad Astra for the role that Brad Pitt was not nominated for.