Michael Dean Buttrill

What a refreshing joy to see such a well done story. Giving the well thought out plot of a VR game within a real game reminded me of ‘Ready Player One’, another success, however ‘Kiss...’ is gritty, sensual, and emotional. Casting, acting and directing were phenomenal. So many shows are using CGI and VR because it is the hot new tech, but when it isn’t really appropriate to the story it falls flat. There is so much I could say about the details in the story, but I’m not getting paid to write this and you are getting bored already, so trust me and watch this.

I really wanted to like this movie, as it is one of my favorite film genres, but as it turned out it wasn’t a sci/fi genre as much as a meditation on father/son dynamics with a space backdrop and a very well composed score. My main disappointment and the reason why this movie fails to earn my accolades or meet the sci/fi genre is that there isn’t enough science. Question; how can a spaceship 2.7 billion miles away from earth cause electrical havoc on the Earth enough to kill 43k people? That would be a very interesting inquiry if it were even remotely plausible, but the writers have failed to even hint at why that could happen even in a fictional world. Why? Probably the same reason why many countries elect anti-intellectual con men to leadership roles, as is currently the situation in the US. Sorry, but I have to call out the ignorant masses on their fear of science and intelllectualism. That aside, Ad Astra does have some feathers in its’ cap, notably the score is freaking amazing. Thank you for showing how good electronic music can be. The acting is B+ on all parts. I wouldn’t be so hard on this film if there weren’t other works like The Martian. Sorry, but you have to acknowledge how excellent that was. Note to James Gray; never, ever, ever, underestimate the intelligence of your audience and if you are gonna spend millions making a work of art with all of this other stuff going for it, the story has to be the foundation, not the side dish.