First, I want to talk about my expectations. So, even though I don’t like paying attention to movie trailers and spoilers or knowing the movie’s plot before watching it, the media caught my attention when promoting the “Ad Astra (2019)” movie and made me think a lot about “Interstellar (2014)”, which I loved.

“Ad astra” versus “Interstellar”

Sure, they’re both sci-fi movies and even though the “Ad Astra” movie script is somewhat similar to the “Interstellar” script and they’re both about space adventures, personally, I believe the actors made all of the differences between the two movies. My expectations for “Ad Astra” made me want a 2nd “Interstellar” movie even more and that’s mostly because I believe Matthew McConaughey (main character in “Interstellar”) still outranks Brad Pitt in his “Ad Astra” movie.

I’m raising a few eyebrows, you know, because I still favour a 5 years old movie like “Interstellar” against a more modern space movie approach like the one found in “Ad Astra”.

Matthew McConaughey’s acting from “Interstellar” created a new space movie standard for me while Brad Pitt’s acting is somewhat emotionless (even the though “Ad Astra” focuses a lot on emotional feelings) and didn’t manage to impress me. In fact, it actually made me think about Pitt’s acting in previous movies and I feel a bit disapointed for liking a most of the roles he took.

And, what does Tommy Lee Jones is looking for in a movie like “Ad Astra”? I don’t think Tommy was fit for this role even though he doesn’t have too many lines. I mean, sure, when I saw “Interstellar” for the first time, I had the same feeling about John Lithgow too. What was he doing there? In my head, he still was that funny character from “3rd rock from the sun” but the lines he had in the movie matched perfectly to his age and to the movie’s goal back then.

What about “Ad Astra” versus “Arrival”, “Interstellar”, “Contact”?

I know when it comes to space in real world or in the movies, we like to make space movies that mixes reality, fiction, technology but which focuses on the moral issues humanity has when it comes to space exploration. And I think “Arrival (2016)”, “Interstellar” and “Contact (1997)” did a great job mixing all of these together whereas “Ad Astra”, failed.

I I expected more, I guess.