News of the World (2020)

27 Tuesday Apr 2021

Posted by sgliput in Movies, NaPoWriMo, Poetry, Reviews, Writing

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(For Day 27 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem inspired by an entry in the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, so I chose the term occhiolism, defined as “the awareness of the smallness of your perspective.”)

We feel very small when we listen to news,
To stories of others who lead separate lives
That warrant inclusion in public archives
While we muddle on to keep paying our dues.

This occhiolism that weakens our worth
Is no different now than in centuries past.
To hear them months later or by simulcast,
The tales are aloof from our spot on the earth.

The world has its leaders, deciders, and threats
That play on a stage we can’t hope to possess.
Our stage may be smaller, but it is not less,
No different than what any everyman gets.

The play is unscripted; the actor must choose
What happens, what follows, and who can partake.
Minute it may be, but a life is at stake,
A personal struggle that dwarfs global news.
_____________________________

MPA rating: PG-13

I have a confession: unlike a few past years where I’ve watched all the Best Picture nominees leading up to the Oscars, I haven’t seen a single 2020 nominee. I’ll get to those eventually, but I have seen at least two snubbed but deserving films in Soul and this one. News of the World pairs Tom Hanks once again with Captain Phillips director Paul Greengrass in a change of pace for both of them, an understated western based on a 2016 novel.

Honestly, I would watch Tom Hanks in almost anything, so I was probably predisposed to like News of the World, but it’s a high-quality reminder that the western genre need not be dead. Hanks plays Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a former Confederate soldier who now makes a living traveling from town to town in Texas and reading newspapers to anyone willing to listen for a dime. During his travels, he stumbles upon a young girl named Johanna (Helena Zengel) who was kidnapped and raised by the Kiowa tribe and now must be taken to her surviving relatives further south. Their journey becomes a dirt road trip of personal growth and bonding between the two, which is perhaps predictably old-fashioned but no less affecting, especially with such strong acting from the two leads.

News of the World did at least earn Oscar nominations for its Cinematography, Score, Production Design, and Sound, none of which it won, but I’m a bit flummoxed by how little Hanks was honored throughout the awards season. His young costar Zengel at least got a Golden Globe nod, but I can’t help but feel that Hanks and the film as a whole was largely overlooked. Its deliberately low-key pace may bore some viewers, but it has its moments of action to show the Old West’s cutthroat side and explores elements of the time period that haven’t been depicted much on film, such as Kidd’s unusual news-reading vocation and the Southern resentment of the Reconstruction era, not to mention the sight of Tom Hanks riding a horse.

I’m a bit torn on how to rank News of the World, but it ultimately left me with a satisfied warmth that few films have given me recently, so I’ll bite the bullet and give it my highest rating. It might get knocked down by the end of the year, but News of the World is a showcase of both Hanks’ established talent and Zengel’s newcomer promise, an undoubtedly newsworthy pair.

Best line: (Johanna) “To move forward, you must remember first.”

Rank: List-Worthy

2021 Blindspot Pick #1: Total Recall (1990)

27 Tuesday Apr 2021

Posted by sgliput in Blindspot, Movies, NaPoWriMo, Poetry, Reviews, Writing

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Sci-fi, Thriller

(It seems I’m too busy to consider midnight as a deadline, so I’ll simply take part in this home stretch of NaPoWriMo as I can. For Day 26, the prompt was to write a parody poem, so I decided to imitate “Paul Revere’s Ride,” one of my favorite poems and meters, and merge it with this movie’s plot.)

Listen, dear viewers, and you shall be played
The bewildering story of Douglas Quaid.
‘Twas some future date in Two Thousand Eight Four,
(This isn’t the remake that many abhor
But Verhoeven’s version that Ahnold portrayed).

He said to his wife, “It would awesome be
If you and I could go visit Mars.”
But because she responded with apathy,
He sought out the next best way to the stars.
No one would care if he were to deign
To have memories planted into his brain,
Maybe to match his curious dreams
Of mystery women and Martian extremes.
But life, he soon found, is not quite what it seems.

When he left Rekall, he recalled very little,
Yet he soon found he was right in the middle
Of murderous Martian Machiavels
And mutants revolting beneath glass shells,
Which most would agree were far too brittle.
Was all this real, or another dream?
Was Quaid a player, and for which team?
I would tell you more, but you must agree
That reviews are best when they’re spoiler-free.
____________________________________

MPA rating: R (strong violence, language, and nudity)

Like 2020, I’m finally getting started on my Blindspot list for the year in April, so I’ll have to double up a few times in the coming months to finish before the end of 2021. Kicking off the list is 1990’s Total Recall, a sci-fi mind-bender featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger at the height of his popularity, along with Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, and Ronny Cox. It certainly represents a niche of its era that Hollywood is unlikely to resurrect successfully now that CGI is so prevalent: the hyper-violent, futuristic thriller with cheesy dialogue and effects that were amazing (and Oscar-winning) for the time and now have almost a quaint, unpolished roughness to them that somehow doesn’t detract from their quality. I’m thinking of movies like Outland, The Running Man, and director Paul Verhoeven’s own Robocop, and Total Recall is a prime example that I had somehow missed until now.

My opinion of Total Recall is split. On the one hand, I love science fiction, and being based on a Philip K. Dick short story, the film is able to delve into a lot of fascinating subjects: questions about the nature of memories and reality, the dirty populism of a future Mars settlement, even the dependency of one’s identity on one’s memories. Plus, there are concepts that were clearly borrowed by later films, such as a red pill being offered to wake Quaid back to “reality,” not unlike The Matrix. Yet for all its impressive themes and gleefully convoluted plotline, ultra-violence has never been my cup of tea, and this movie definitely earns its R rating. Beyond the space brothels and headshots, it also gets very weird with its psychic mutants and whatnot, all of which I suppose should be no surprise considering the time period and Verhoeven’s involvement.

So Total Recall is a mixed bag for me, an unabashed sci-fi thrill ride that finds a balance between philosophizing and tearing bad guys’ arms off. It’s the kind of film I think is dragged down by its R-rated content even as I know that’s part of the appeal for its fans. I’m glad still to have watched it, even if I’d prefer to see it on a cut TV channel in the future. Take the grain and leave the chaff, as they say.

Best line: (Kuato the mutant) “You are what you do. A man is defined by his actions, not his memory.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

Cloverfield (2008)

26 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by sgliput in Movies, NaPoWriMo, Poetry, Reviews, Writing

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Horror, Sci-fi, Thriller

(Late again, I know, but for Day 25 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a poem celebrating an occasion. Thus, the occasion is the end of the world, with the monster responsible speaking.)

Hello, all you humans and lovely to meet you,
And what an enchanting doomsday!
I hope you don’t mind it too much if I eat you,
The whole giant monster cliché.
I see you down there;
You can’t help but stare,
And I cannot blame you,
For I’m come to claim you
And wipe your whole species away.

You’ve had a good run for a few thousand years.
You’ve come a long way from the caves.
But civilization is fragile with fears
When nature no longer behaves.
Don’t cry since it’s done;
You’re wiser to run.
It won’t do much good,
But you did what you could.
I’ll be sure to dance on your graves.
_________________________

MPA rating: PG-13

Considering I have already seen and reviewed 10 Cloverfield Lane, an in-universe sequel with no direct connection to this film, I figured I ought to actually watch the original Cloverfield. Yet while the later film was presented in typical movie style, Cloverfield is a prime example of the found footage genre, with all the first-person interactions and disorienting shaky cam that goes along with it. The plot is paper thin as five New Yorkers (among them T.J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David, and Lizzy Caplan) are interrupted from their party-going and relationship drama by the sudden appearance of a giant rampaging monster.

Cloverfield doesn’t reinvent its genre, but it’s still serviceably entertaining, with the best moments involving the horrifying beasts tearing through the city, shrewdly keeping them off-screen as much as possible to tap into that monster-you-barely-see tension. Yet its chosen format also comes off as hard-to-believe, as Miller’s character Hud continues to film every little thing long after any sane person would have put the camera down. For comparison, I thought The Dinosaur Project handled that well by making the cameras small and wearable rather than the eye-level camcorder here. I can appreciate Cloverfield’s best moments, such as the iconic Statue of Liberty head, but its repetitive, dizzying camerawork and grim ending make it less appealing than 10 Cloverfield Lane, which is a better film on every level.

Rank: Honorable Mention

Mean Girls (2004)

25 Sunday Apr 2021

Posted by sgliput in Movies, NaPoWriMo, Poetry, Reviews, Writing

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Comedy

(Yes, I sadly missed Day 23, but I didn’t want to skip another day. For Day 24 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to describe an animal but replace its name with something else, which I thought worked well with this movie.)

The teenage girl in her habitat
Is not unlike any other big cat.
Observe how some convene to brood
While others prize their solitude.
Observe how weaker species cringe
And keep their distance at the fringe.

Observe how, at their queen’s behest,
Girls choose a target from the rest
And so proceed to bite and claw,
Exploiting every errant flaw.
They show no mercy to their prey
And, satisfied, sashay away.
___________________________

MPA rating: PG

Perhaps because I thought I would not enjoy a movie about, well, mean girls, I never watched Mean Girls when I was actually in high school, and being home-schooled, perhaps I wouldn’t have related to it much back then. But with every mention of “Fetch” and the Plastics in the years since, I began to feel that there was a hole in my pop culture knowledge that had to be rectified. Furthermore, I began listening to the soundtrack of Mean Girls the Broadway musical, confirming that I had to see the original movie, which is pretty much exactly what happened with Heathers too.

Written by and co-starring Tina Fey, the story follows Cady Heron (teenage Lindsay Lohan) as her zoologist parents move her from Africa back to the U.S., where she must contend with the new reality of high school cliques. The most powerful group is the Plastics, made up of dumb Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried), gossipy Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert), and ruthless Regina George (Rachel McAdams), and the trio takes a liking to Cady. After bringing her into the fold, Cady’s misfit friends (Lizzy Caplan, Daniel Franzese) urge her to bring George down from within, and the transfer student struggles with who she wants to be.

As I watched Mean Girls, I chuckled at the jokes and nodded at the many lines borrowed by the musical, but I sort of held it at arm’s length. I don’t exactly enjoy watching girls acting mean to each other, so I wasn’t sure where the film would end up in my appraisal. Yet by the end, as empathy is extolled and everyone gets their resolution and Orbital’s soothing “Halcyon + On + On” plays over the credits, I had to admit that I liked it. The more I listened to the musical and explored how popular and quotable the film has become, I liked it even more, until it finally ended up on my end-of-2020 Top Twelve list. My VC was not as positive, feeling the high school cruelty hit a bit too close to home in her memories, so perhaps my being home-schooled helped me enjoy it more than I would have otherwise.

Despite its outstanding script, the plot of Mean Girls feels derivative, with its trio of wannabe Heathers and the theme of high school cliques that has been used from Grease to High School Musical, yet there’s something fun and definitive about it, embracing the clichés to the point of epitomizing them. It also has had its own influence, like how Dora and the Lost City of Gold basically has the exact same plot set-up, and Lost imitated a certain bus scene just a couple years later. Regardless of why it has had such staying power, it was great fun seeing early roles for actresses that have gone on to much bigger success, as well as several SNL alumni, and I couldn’t help but notice the absence of now-ubiquitous smartphones, marking the film as a distinct product of the early 2000s. With the news that a film adaptation of the musical is in the works, I’m actually excited for more Mean Girls, surprisingly enough. It’s downright fetch.

Best line: (Cady, having an epiphany) “Calling somebody else fat won’t make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn’t make you any smarter. And ruining Regina George’s life definitely didn’t make me any happier. All you can do in life is try to solve the problem in front of you.”

Rank: List-Worthy

The Harvey Girls (1946)

23 Friday Apr 2021

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Comedy, Musical, Romance, Western

(For Day 22 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to employ metonymy and represent a time period with a symbol of it. Thus, I use the once-famous Harvey Girls as the symbol of civilizing the West.)

When the West was won,
It was not by the train,
Not by the cowboy traversing the plain,
Not by the outlaws and not by the slain,
Not by the farmers with acres of grain,
Not by the rushes for land, gold, and gain.

No, ‘twere the girls
That made civil the West,
The Harvey House ladies so formally dressed,
Who treated the pioneer more like a guest:
By breakfast and coffee and steak on request,
America’s destiny made manifest.
_____________________________

MPA rating: Not Rated (easily a G)

If you’re anything like me, you may have never heard of the Harvey Houses that sprouted up along the railroads in the late 1800s as the first American restaurant chain. Lately, I’ve been in a mood of gleeful discovery as I stumble upon bits of history I had never learned before, and this is one of them. My only knowledge of this film about the Harvey girls, who were hired and shipped west to work in these restaurants, was the famous Oscar-winning song “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe,” which was highlighted in the compilation film That’s Entertainment. All this to say that I was glad to finally see how this movie about forgotten history compared with other classics of the time.

The presence of Judy Garland in the lead role alone makes it a classic. She plays Susan Bradley, a would-be mail-order bride who becomes a Harvey waitress in the newly established location at Sandrock, Arizona, where the established saloon owner (John Hodiak) and his goons are less than pleased to have civilization threatening business. From the first moment where Garland and Hodiak verbally tussle, it’s obvious they will eventually fall for each other. The rest of the film is likewise predictable, albeit with a nuanced turn from Angela Lansbury as the jealous “other woman,” and the songs and choreography are rather uninspired, except for the one famous song that snagged an Oscar.

There is fun to be had, such as an all-woman bar brawl or the reunion of Garland and Ray Bolger (the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz), but The Harvey Girls is a lesser classic, to be sure. Still, I love that it spotlighted a slice of history when it was still part of the public’s common knowledge, and I wouldn’t mind perhaps a modern take on the Harvey Girls story one day. (If you like random history too, you might look up Bass Reeves, Dr. Wu Lien-teh, and the Goiania incident, all of which deserve their own movie as well.)

Best line: (Alma, one of the girls) “I sent my picture into one of those Lonely Hearts Clubs, and they sent it back, saying ‘We’re not that lonely!’”

Ranking: Honorable Mention

Platoon (1986)

21 Wednesday Apr 2021

Posted by sgliput in Movies, NaPoWriMo, Poetry, Reviews, Writing

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Drama, War

(For Day 21 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem that uses repetition to drive the rhythm forward, so I used the loaded words “The war” to do just that.)

The war was far off overseas,
The war between the Vietnamese,
The war of free and Communist,
The war for which we must enlist,
The war our leaders said to fight,
The war that blurred the wrong and right.
The war inspired defiant tunes,
The war that gobbled whole platoons,
The war that made our mothers cry,
The war that never told them why,
The war that screamed in every face.
The war dragged on despite disgrace,
The war that fueled the most debate,
The war the hippies loved to hate,
The war that few could quite defend,
The war that none could comprehend,
The war we did not fight to win,
The war that answered sin for sin,
The war whose end held no success.
The war still ended nonetheless,
The war so far off overseas
The war that was so hard to please.
_______________________________

MPA rating: R (for much language and violence)

Platoon has long been known to me as the film with that iconic scene of the jungle soldier with his arms raised amid gunfire while Samuel Barber’s haunting Adagio for Strings crescendos in the background. Yet the film itself was never a priority until it happened to come on TV recently. I now see why it’s considered one of the greatest war films ever. I now see why it warranted Best Picture and Best Direction for Oliver Stone, not to mention Best Sound and Film Editing. It’s a challenging watch, but it seems to do the Vietnam War justice, considering it is somewhat based on Stone’s own experiences enlisting for combat in Vietnam.

Charlie Sheen proves he was quite a good actor before his crazier days distracted from that fact, and he serves as Chris Taylor, the stand-in for Stone, an idealistic new recruit who is introduced to the horrors of war and a clash of ideologies between ruthless Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger) and kinder Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe). While he makes friends along the way (Keith David), his tour of duty is a tour of everything that made the war hellish: the uncooperative Vietnamese and the difficulty of telling foe from victim, the confusion and threat of friendly fire, the danger of losing your soul amid all the violence.

By the end, even separate from Chris’s poetic monologues, it makes a case for peace simply by illustrating how terrible its absence is. With surprising supporting roles from the likes of Johnny Depp, Kevin Dillon, Forest Whitaker, and John C. McGinley and a perfect ‘60s soundtrack punctuated by the contrasting beauty of classical, Platoon is a great film that may not be easy to watch but is undoubtedly worth it.

Best line: (Elias) “What happened today was just the beginning. We’re gonna lose this war.”
(Chris) “Come on. You really think so? Us?”
(Elias) “We been kicking other people’s a**es for so long, I figured it’s time we got ours kicked.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

Don’t Let Go (2019)

20 Tuesday Apr 2021

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Drama, Sci-fi, Thriller

(For Day 20 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a sijo, a Korean form similar to haiku but with three longer 14-to-16-syllable lines and ending with a twist.)

I received a call from my niece. Yet I’m afraid to answer.
I can’t be sure what to say, much less to expect from her.
I wished we could talk again, for she died only weeks ago.
_______________________________

MPA rating: R (some language and violence, mostly at the very end)

I love movies that play with time: time loops, time travel, time displacement, time for dinner. And I’m usually willing to overlook massive plot holes for the joy of seeing a film mess with time in a unique way. Don’t Let Go didn’t get much fanfare upon release, but it’s a sci-fi thriller I thoroughly enjoyed, using its mostly black cast to perfection. As mentioned in the poem, David Oyelowo plays a cop who is crushed when his brother’s whole family is found dead, including his beloved niece Ashley (Storm Reid). To his shock, though, he later receives a call from Ashley and discovers that he’s talking to his niece several days before her murder, prompting them both to figure out how to prevent the crime from two different points in time.

Don’t Let Go never really addresses how its central concept happens; it just exists to make the plot possible, perhaps as a gift from above, and that’s okay. Oyelowo and Reid make a wonderful team, even when separated by time and cell phone, and the mystery remains tense and compelling throughout. I was also pleasantly surprised that it was largely clean of profanity as well, at least until the very end. Also starring Alfred Molina, Mykelti Williamson, and Brian Tyree Henry, Don’t Let Go is an excellent blend of emotional sci-fi and police puzzler that only strengthens my love of quality genre cinema.

Rank: List Runner-Up (very close to List-Worthy)

Runaway Bride (1999)

19 Monday Apr 2021

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Comedy, Romance

(For Day 19 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a humorous rant, and I figure that a groom left at the altar would have plenty to rant about.)

You didn’t want to marry me.
I get that; I accept it.
It’s not a secret now, but I
Wish I knew why you kept it.

To wait until the chapel doors,
Complete with gown and veil,
And then to say “No way, Jose”
And just abruptly bail?

We’d paid the finest florist,
(That alone, I may not mind it),
But I’d reserved a limousine
With cans to trail behind it.

We paid the band and baker,
Had a cake of twenty tiers;
They said it was the biggest crowd
The church had seen in years.

Not once when we were dating
Did I think you were a phony.
So why was it so difficult
Embracing matrimony?

I’ve been humiliated
By your gamophobic smack.
I only have one thing to say…
Will you please take me back?!
_____________________

MPA rating: PG

Runaway Bride could be seen as the less prestigious sibling of Pretty Woman, both being directed by Garry Marshall and teaming Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, as well as Héctor Elizondo. Yet Pretty Woman has an R-rated edge to it, while Runaway Bride is closer to Hallmark territory, a predictable but wholly likable romantic comedy set in an idyllic small town. In this one, Roberts plays Maggie Carpenter, who grows semi-famous for leaving men at the altar and becomes the story subject for Ike Graham, a disgraced columnist eager to cover how her engagement with her latest boyfriend (Christopher Meloni) will go.

Runaway Bride is the kind of comfortable rom-com that I tend to like, even if it’s completely by-the-numbers with the two leads initially despising each other and gradually increasing their chemistry. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, though, and this still has a much stronger script and acting compared with the average Hallmark movie. While I loved Julia Roberts’ effortless charm here, I found myself a little frustrated at times with Maggie’s cold-feet behavior, explained away with needing to “find herself,” and how she treats her ex-suitors, but ultimately her growth and eventual happy ending still make for a pleasant watch and welcome chuckles. Critics would disagree, but I think I’m more partial to this lighter follow-up than to Pretty Woman, but maybe that’s just me. I’m tempted to make it List-Worthy and perhaps will bump it up with future viewings, but it’s certainly close.

Best line: (Peggy Fleming, Maggie’s friend) “Have you heard my husband’s morning show, Wake Up With Flem?”
and
(Ike, in response to her friend’s mocking Maggie’s past) “A toast to, uh, to Maggie’s family and friends. May you find yourselves the bulls-eye of an easy target. May you be publicly flogged for all of your bad choices. And may your noses be rubbed in all of your mistakes.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

Resistance (2020)

18 Sunday Apr 2021

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Biopic, Drama, History

(For Day 18 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a poem inspired by one of the chapter titles in Susan G. Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words, and the heading “Controlled Abandon” caught my eye, associating it with any kind of innovation or risk-taking, which can be simply unusual or truly dangerous.)

Upon the walls of cultured art, the few who make the rules
Can mock the fewer down below and designate them fools.
For who but madmen with abandon would attempt to flout
The well-established orthodoxy, confident in clout?
But down below, the darer knows what’s needed to invent,
And every tiny movement made is careful with intent.
The price of forging something new may well survive disdain,
For “madmen” such as these know there is nothing done in vain.

Upon the walls of tyranny, the few who make the rules
Can mock the vulgar down below and designate them fools.
For who but madmen with abandon would resist the State,
Which has the power to enforce its whims without debate?
But down below, the darer knows what’s needed to dissent,
And every tiny movement made is careful with intent.
The price of saving someone else may well result in pain,
But “madmen” such as these know there is nothing done in vain.
_______________________________________

MPA rating: R (can be intense, but what is actually shown is closer to PG-13)

There are already so many films set in World War II, whether it be on the battlefield or in the Nazi-occupied cities where Jews were threatened, but they never seem to get old. Resistance may fall into the middle pack of such films, but it’s still an excellent period piece/biopic about the early life of Marcel Marceau, who went on to become the world’s most famous mime.

Jesse Eisenberg might not have been my first choice for the role, but he proves to be a compelling figure as a misunderstood artist moved to action by the plight of displaced Jewish children in France. Likewise, Clémence Poésy and Bella Ramsey deliver affecting performances as Marcel’s love interest and a girl he rescues, respectively, while Matthias Schweighöfer is a terror as notorious Nazi Klaus Barbie. The plotline is not especially original but still packs emotional power and occasional menace, and the way that Marceau’s budding talent as a mime is employed to cheer the children is well executed by Eisenberg.

Mime itself has never been of much interest to me, and the film’s final moments may be underwhelming for luddites like me, but its sincerity and historical basis are nonetheless impressive. Resistance may have underperformed due to its release at the start of the pandemic last March, but it deserves more appreciation.

Rank: List Runner-Up

Ad Astra (2019)

17 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by sgliput in Movies, NaPoWriMo, Poetry, Reviews, Writing

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Drama, Sci-fi

(For Day 17 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a poem about the moon, which is galling since I had a movie that was all about the moon just TWO DAYS AGO! So I went with a different movie partially set on the moon, because of course I had another in reserve.)

Space is a nothing, a vacuum complete,
With planetoid motes spinning round in the void.
Yet we on our mote have a course we repeat:
To find and expand, be diffused or destroyed.

But distances mock us, too deadly and vast
For Earth to consider a visit or leap.
We have but one friend in our orbital caste,
A lunar companion whose slope is less steep.

The moon in its course is our first rung to climb,
The first stepping stone, Tenerife to our Spain,
From which human hordes, in a matter of time,
Can strike at the void with one win to their name.
____________________________________________

MPA rating: PG-13

Ad Astra (Latin for To the Stars) is the kind of movie I wanted to like, just as I wanted to enjoy First Man, but once again a plodding pace and stoic protagonist upend what could have been so much better. In a future where mankind has settled on the moon and Mars and extended a mission as far as Neptune, Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) is an astronaut famed for controlling his emotions under pressure; he is told that his father (Tommy Lee Jones), who disappeared on that Neptune mission, may be alive and perhaps is responsible for some dangerous energy surges threatening Earth. That setup has enormous potential, but Roy has basically buried those emotions so deep that only a trip across the solar system rife with metaphysical introspection can help him overcome his daddy issues.

There are interesting sci-fi concepts, like how the moon has been as commercialized as Earth, reminiscent of Futurama to be honest, but they’re kept to the background. There are moments of action spectacle that instantly boost viewer interest, such as a rover chase on the moon or the film’s incredible opening where Roy falls off a space antenna, but the plot quickly dips back into monotony as Roy narrates every stray thought. Some of it really is deep, paired with visually striking imagery, and certainly better explored than the wordlessness of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it also feels pretentious and suffers from not really going anywhere, since the result of Roy’s journey isn’t particularly enlightening. I’m not naturally drawn to Brad Pitt like I am to space movies, so Ad Astra is a mixed bag to say the least, a film with a lot on its mind and something missing to make it compelling. In different hands, it might have been epic; as it is, it’s rather forgettable but for its best scenes.

Rank: Honorable Mention

	associatesofshellyma… on My Top Twelve La La La So…
	Kit Nichols on Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
	lifelessons on Look Back (2024)
	Carol Jackson on The Thief of Bagdad (1940…
	Stephen on Love Story (1970)

Rhyme and Reason

~ Poetry Meets Film Reviews

Category Archives: Reviews

News of the World (2020)

2021 Blindspot Pick #1: Total Recall (1990)

Cloverfield (2008)

Mean Girls (2004)

The Harvey Girls (1946)

Platoon (1986)

Don’t Let Go (2019)

Runaway Bride (1999)

Resistance (2020)

Ad Astra (2019)