Ad Astra: Good Cast, Great Effects, Poor Story

Movie Review: Ad Astra (2019)
Version: Library borrow

Let me begin by describing Ad Astra this way: It has a good cast, great effects, but a poor story.

Ad astra in Latin means "to the stars". This film, Ad Astra, doesn't take us there. It takes us in-flight from Earth to the orbit of Jupiter where astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) seeks his long-dead father Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones). Said to have died in a failed mission to Jupiter in search of extraterrestrial life, it is now thought he miraculously survived and is trying to communicate with Earth. His ship orbits Jupiter and is somehow sending deadly radiation to back to Earth and authorities want Roy to go to Mars to get him to stop. When that mission fails, Roy tries to hijack a sniper mission to Jupiter for a face-to-face encounter.

There is much to admire about this film. It's casting is superb, although I've never envisioned Pitt as an astronaut type. Tommy Lee Jones makes for a pretty good psycho scientist who would leave his family behind to live out life isolated and alone for decades -- kind of typecasting for him. And Donald Sutherland makes for a convincing father-figure scientist keeping his eye on the lost son seeking redemption with his father. Liv Tyler makes a brief appearance as Pitt's love interest, a role she played well in Armageddon. Also, the visual effects are fairly good. But what turned me off the film was the science and the overall premise of the film. First, that this small, puny ship can spew that magnitude of life-threatening radiation toward Earth from that far away is ludicrous. Second, the time frames in the film are all out of whack; they make little effort to show realistic travel travel lengths between celestial bodies for human travel or suggest why short travel time is possible. Third, that Pitt's father could live that long (decades), physically or mentally, on his own is ridiculous. Fourth, the way Pitt's character saves himself at the end is both impossible and implausible. Give me a break!

So, if you choose to see Ad Astra -- if you want an excuse to see it -- here is what you've got. You have a crush on Brad Pitt. You like watching Tommy Lee Jones play a crusty old man. A teary-eyed Liv Tyler is a turn on. Space special effects give you goose bumps. You like picking apart movies. That's about it.

The Mechanic: Watch It at Your Own Risk

Movie Review: The Mechanic (2011)
Version: Library borrow

The Mechanic is a cheap-looking version of a modern-day hitman movie. It's not that it isn't a good film in its own right, it's just that we've seen so many good ones that The Mechanic fails to measure up to the better ones. But let's pretend for a moment that we haven't seen any of the good ones yet and measure The Mechanic on its own merits.

Jason Statham, who often plays the bad guy in other movies, is the good guy here. He's Arthur Bishop, an elite hitman who always works to professional perfection and with total detachment; it's nothing personal. It's just a job, but he does the job right. But then he is tricked into assassinating his mentor, Harry (played by Donald Sutherland), and when he discovers he was set up to make the hit, he goes after whoever set him up. So now it is personal. Coming along for the journey is Harry's grown up but impulsive son, Steve (played by Ben Foster), who also wants revenge. Steve doesn't realize at first that the hitman is Arthur, who mentors Steve into the ways of the hitman. Later, Steve  finds a clue that Arthur killed his father and once he helps Arthur go after the bad guys, he tries to enact revenge on Arthur.

Now the problem with this film is that Jason Statham isn't a strong lead for a film. He makes a great bad guy. He makes a great second as a good guy. But he lacks the acting chops to come off as the main character. In this case, he is so detached that you lack sympathy for him when he has to kill his mentor, you lack empathy for him when he tries to help his mentor's son who then turns on him, and you lack satisfaction for him at the end. It all becomes an exercise in rote storytelling. I like Statham for his swagger and his stunt work, but he isn't a list-A actor.

There is plenty of action in this film, so if you're after an action film, this could be a cheap thrill movie for you. Just don't expect to particularly like the hero or feel vindicated by his actions. Watch The Mechanic at your own risk.