When Quentin Tarantino raved about “Dunkirk” on The Ringer’s “The Rewatchables” podcast, I completely omitted another segment from that appearance in which the writer-director also criticizes last year’s sci-fi epic, “Ad Astra.” The James Gray-directed space drama featured Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” star, Brad Pitt, in the leading role.
In the podcast, Tarantino cites “Ad Astra” when talking about how there is a right and wrong way to feel confused when watching a movie. Mentioning how “Dunkirk” can be confusing but works due to Nolan’s symphonic structure, Tarantino chides “Ad Astra” as a film that left him confused in a bad way.
“In the whole second half of [‘Ad Astra’], I don’t know why anything is happening,” Tarantino said. “We’re just supposed to agree with them about everything that they say, but I don’t know why this is working or why that is working; why a mutiny on a ship that happened 15 years ago is now sending surges that has killed 40,000 people. We just go with it because they tell us that’s what’s happening.”
“What you respond to in that movie is they took the entire structure of ‘Apocalypse Now,'” the director continued. “I mean, exactly. … I enjoyed watching ‘Ad Astra,’ it was a very pretty movie and I loved Brad in it, but I didn’t understand why things were happening. Nolan doesn’t really tell us anything that’s going on in ‘Dunkirk,’ but I have a sense of what’s happening.”
in my 09.17.19 review of “Ad Astra” I wrote:
“This is Gray trying to make his own space odyssey but without the grab-me-by-the-neck hypnotism of the obvious classic forebearers. The narration by McBride feels too overused, an almost Malick-ian approach from Gray, with voiceover passages that feel more pretentious than authentic. It doesn’t help that the father-son story doesn’t really grab the viewer either, I quite simply didn’t care for the emotional stakes at hand in “Ad Astra.” The end result left me wanting more, much more, but the fascinating moments, even the ones that fail, are hard to dismiss as just fodder, if you’re a serious-minded cinephile looking to be challenged at the movies then this is something worth seeing and then grasping.“
Visit The Ringer’s website for Tarantino’s podcast appearance on “The Rewatchables.”