On the surface, you’d think that a critically-acclaimed $100 million sci-fi that landed an Academy Award nomination would be the undiluted outcome of its director’s creative vision, but that wasn’t the case with James Gray’s Ad Astra.
In spite of a stellar Certified Fresh score of 83 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and a nod for Best Sound Mixing at the biggest awards ceremony on the calendar, the filmmaker couldn’t wash his hands of the ambitious intergalactic family drama quick enough. In fact, late last year Gray stated in no uncertain terms that “it’s not my cut of the movie, and I find it a very painful experience to have people tell me things they hated about the movie that I had nothing to do with.”
Ad Astra may have won praise from those tasked to write reviews, but audiences were a great deal less impressed, and we’re not just talking about an audience approval rating of only 40 percent on the aforementioned aggregation site, either. By only reaching $135 million at the box office, the elegiac cosmic adventure ended up posting a substantial loss for 20th Century Fox’s freshly-installed new owners Disney, but at least Gray will deny that he had anything to do with it.
On the plus side, a recent Reddit thread has seen Ad Astra come in for a smattering of renewed praise, even if the languid pacing and navel-gazing that take up a great deal of the 124-minute running time remain familiar bugbears. It might be a big budget sci-fi backed by a major studio with an A-lister in the lead role, but anyone expecting anything along the lines of fast-paced action, nail-biting thrills, and quippy banter will be left disappointed, apart from the incredible lunar chase sequence, of course.
