Review: Brad Pitt sets out to save the world in ‘Ad Astra,’ a space odyssey that stumbles and soars

Somber, stirring, ridiculous and just shy of sublime, James Gray’s speculative fiction “Ad Astra” opens with a vision of a man falling to Earth. As “Ad Astra” follows Roy toward the outer reaches of the solar system, tracing a path that superficially recalls the arc of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” it becomes increasingly elastic in its play with genre, shape-shifting into an action movie, a paranoid thriller and, finally, an earnest hybrid of cosmic parable and male weepie. But if the world building in “Ad Astra” leaves something to be desired — as does Ruth Negga’s underdeveloped role as a potential ally of Roy’s — it may be because the director’s investment here is more emotional than intellectual. And Pitt’s increasingly moist-eyed turn, stiff and sensitive by turns, is a fascinating study in alienation; he makes clear the degree to which Roy has both idealized and internalized his father’s neglect, turning “Ad Astra” into a psychodrama of impacted masculinity and paternal conflict.