Ad Astra Reactions Hail James Gray and Brad Pitt’s Sci-Fi Masterpiece

Co-writer and director James Gray teamed up with Brad Pitt for their sci-fi epic Ad Astra. The film bowed at the Venice Film Festival this past weekend and thus far, the reactions and reviews are more or less raves. Gray and Pitt’s pairing is like Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix’s teaming up for Joker in one way and one way only; they took a beloved genre (in Gray and Pitt’s case, sci-fi) and made it entirely their own. Okay, the two films and their creators also share the fact that they brought their movies to Venice to signal they believe they’ve got the Oscar goods. It seems that both Ad Astra and Joker are now firmly in Oscar talk-territory.

Actually, Ad Astra and Joker share another commonality; both hail from original scripts. Ad Astra was written by Gray and co-writer Ethan Gross and follows Pitt’s Major Roy McBride, an astronaut tasked with voyaging to the outer edges of the solar system to track down his missing father Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones), who may or may not have uncovered a mystery that threatens life in the universe. We’ve rounded up the early reactions, spoiler-free, to give you a sense of why you want to put this film on your must-see list:

Ad Astra hits theaters on September 20, 2019.

Featured image: Brad Pitt stars in “Ad Astra”. Credit: Francois Duhamel. Copyright Twentieth Century Fox

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bryan Abrams

Bryan Abrams is the Editor-in-chief of The Credits. He's run the site since its launch in 2012. He lives in New York.