WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!
Let me get this out of the way up front: after seeing the movie, I looked up what the reviews said, and many said, well, this isn't really a sci-fi pic, but about relationships. OK, fine; but that isn't why I am ragging this film.
I am trashing this film because it is ridiculous. The plot makes no sense.
If you enjoy me shredding this picture, read on. If you want a "too long, didn't read" summary, here it is:
And I am not talking about minor things. Lots of films have little errors or illogicalities, but I can overlook a certain number of these because they just serve to speed things along or tell the story in a more interesting way. So, for example, at one point the Pitt character sends a message to his father on a ship presumed to be orbiting Neptune. He speaks into a microphone, and then everyone expects an immediate answer. This is dopey, of course.
Even with the special laser referred to in the movie, the message would take four hours to travel that far, and another four hours for any response (assuming dad has the same special laser). But OK, having everyone wait all that time only makes the story a little more tedious. Similar points could be made about the gravity on Mars and our moon apparently being just like earth -- except when it's not, as in the pirates on the moon chasing Pitt and his party as they head for the far side of the moon. But I was thinking, OK, maybe they wear heavy shoes inside to compensate for low gravity, and they don't want to spend time explaining all that.
No, the problems boil down to a very simple matter: the whole story is junk. Here it is: Brad Pitt plays a highly decorated member of U.S. Space Command, who has performed exceptionally in many tasks. His age isn't spelled out in the film, but he would seem to be in his 40s. We meet him as he plummets from a orbital telescope array to earth, and manages to deploy his parachute and land safely. The fall was prompted by sudden explosions, which we learn were caused by some sort of electrical storm emanating from out near Neptune. This phenomenon keeps happening, causing grave damage all over earth, and -- of course -- if it can't be stopped, the planet is doomed.
OK, this itself seems pretty sketchy, although I didn't realize the problem; it was one of the reviewers who pointed this out: how does this ship billions of miles away cause such awful damage, and yet itself isn't wrecked? See that? That's an oops that is completely fatal to the whole story. But wait! There's more!
The higher-ups seek out Pitt because they think his dad (who is on the ship out Neptune way) has gone around the bend, and they hope Pitt can help them convince his father to stop messing with the solar system. This briefing, by the way, is when Pitt finds out his dad is actually alive! He hadn't seen him since he took off on this mission 30 years earlier, and assumed his father was dead. Which raises yet another huge problem: how, exactly, has dad survived all this time while orbiting Neptune? Let's just skip over the problem of oxygen and water, assuming they have the means to recycle all that for decades. And we'll assume the Neptune ship has shielding from radiation that we don't have now. What about food? We'll come back to this in a moment.
So here's what the higher-ups ask Pitt to do. He takes a commercial flight to the moon (that sequence, along with the opening sequence, was fun to watch, especially when we see Applebees and DHL with outlets on the moon!); there he is supposed to go to a base on the dark side, and fly to Mars. On Mars, he will access the special space laser thingabob in order to attempt contact with dad...
Only, why does he need to go to Mars to do this? They can't do this from earth? Even if the message must be sent from Mars, why can't he relay the message from earth to Mars? None of this makes any sense! Why this huge expense and risk? More than that, why the delay? It takes 17 days or so to get to Mars; a lot of catastrophes on earth can happen in that time.
Of course, cutting all that out means we don't get to see the moon pirates come out of nowhere and attempt to kill? Or kidnap? Pitt and his party. Except, Pitt was warned this might happen, so they took along a few extra space Marines. Of course they didn't send enough protection (why not?), so it was all touch-and-go, and Pitt just barely makes it safely to the base. By the way, why -- if the moon is such a dangerous place to travel, with wars and piracy here and there -- aren't people traveling in something better than open buggies? It makes no sense. Moving on...
Now Pitt is on a ship to Mars, only his mission is top secret; so when the captain of the ship slows down to answer a distress call from a ship floating somewhere between Earth and Mars -- why, by the way? Why there? We're told it is some sort of science ship; fine. But what demand of science requires that ship to be soooooo very far away from the nearest civilization? Why would anyone think this was a good idea? Stupid, stupid, stupid...
Oh, it gets worse still! Pitt doesn't want to stop -- "anyone can answer that distress call!" (Really? There's that much traffic between Earth and Mars?) But the captain insists. Then when they stop, the distress call goes away and no one is responding on the science ship. If I recall correctly, there were 20 or so people on board. Hmm, who doesn't like some mystery? So now the trip to the ship-in-distress is more perilous and the two officers on board are now worried (why? Aren't they trained for this sort of thing?) and so Pitt goes with the captain, and the second-in-command remains behind.
We get to the science ship and find...nothing. No one. Creepy. Mystery builds...then Pitt comes face to face with an enraged baboon, doing nasty things to the captain's arm and face. Pitt knocks out (or kills) the baboon, seals up the captain's damaged suit with tape, and as he starts to take him back to the other ship, another baboon -- just as ragey! -- appears! Pitt is able to close the hatch between himself and the space monkey, and decompress the chamber, and we see a sudden explosion of monkey guts all over the other side of the hatch window. (Except that wouldn't happen; the baboon would asphyxiate, not explode.)
Pitt brings the badly injured captain back aboard the original ship, where he dies. And...nothing more about the disabled science ship. Apparently the problem was the baboons getting loose, and apparently, the baboons kill everybody. And this diversion means absolutely nothing to the overall story, other than setting up the scene where they attempt a landing on Mars, only to have another power surge from Neptune mess up the automated landing gizmo, and the second-in-command loses his nerve, forcing Pitt to do the landing manually. Then Pitt tells the badly shaken second-in-command, "I won't report this to Space Command." What??? As if the others on board are all going to keep it secret? As if there won't be a debriefing about what happened? They are all going to lie? To protect this sad-sack lieutenant who lost his nerve twice on this mission? Oh, and here I might mention that Pitt undergoes repeated psychological evaluations with an automated computer program. This seems to be Standard Operating Procedure, given the stresses of service in space. This makes no sense! But I repeat myself.
Hang on, you ain't heard nothing yet...
Now on Mars, and his mission still highly secret, Pitt is greeted by the base commander, played by Ruth Negga, who unfortunately lacks sufficient security clearance; so immediately, some other guy takes over. This matters later. Now Pitt is taken to a soundproof room to send his message. This itself seems ridiculous -- why soundproof? -- but let's hasten to the next utterly absurd part. After his first try sending the pre-approved script, he makes a second attempt, but improvises the message. The folks in the control room show obvious consternation, but they send the message all the same. Their facial reactions suggest they got some sort of response, but won't confirm this for Pitt, who is mysteriously ushered from the room, and told he is no longer needed. He fails his next psych eval -- the idea being that where he had been cool and detached all this time, he feels sudden longing for his father. OK, I'll go with that. That's a nice touch, really (and obviously, this whole father-son thing is the main story here).
What happens next is galactically stupid. Remember the woman who runs the facility, but who lacks security clearance? She seeks out Pitt, who is in a "comfort" room viewing images of daisies trying to calm down, and reveals to him yet more about his father. She has a recorded distress message from the Neptune ship -- lots of garbled screaming -- followed by a yet-more-creepy dad (played by Tommy Lee Jones) explaining that some of the crew mutinied, and he was forced to cut off their life support, and in the process of killing "the guilty," some innocents also died. Then we learn that two of these dead are Negga's parents! What a coincidence!
Negga -- who, remember, lacks sufficient clearance -- reveals to Pitt that a ship is about to launch to Neptune, with the purpose of destroying the ship with Tommy Lee Jones on it. Pitt, of course, is not part of this and -- of course -- not likely to be under any circumstances, but especially now that he's deemed unreliable by Space Command. Pitt says to Negga, "get me on that ship!" (What? How?) The best I can do is get you close to the launch, which she proceeds to do.
Let's stop here: why is she doing this? She just told Pitt that her parents were murdered by his father. Shouldn't he wonder about her motives? But more than that: why in the world would she want Pitt on that ship? Remember, the point of the expedition is to go kill the bad guy. Does she want Pitt to go and save the murderer of her parents? None of this is ever explored. She seems utterly uninterested in what Pitt's plans are, and how they will affect the overall mission.
OK, so she drives him out near the launch, and lets him off near some hatch in the ground, which Pitt opens effortlessly and climbs into; that leads to a large pipe -- but not large enough to walk through easily (why? What is this pipe for? Why wasn't it's entrance locked?) Next he is swimming through dirty water (why is there all this water? On a dry planet?) and he comes up for air just beneath the rocket. We hear the countdown -- 7 minutes and some seconds to go! Pitt climbs up the silo while the rocket warms up; and as the engines fire -- massive fireball! -- Pitt is clinging to the side of the rocket, and manages to open a hatch and slip in. All this happens AFTER the rocket launches! Join me in the refrain: THIS MAKES NO SENSE!
Of course this trips an alarm aboard-ship, and the concerned crew tells ground control about the unsecured latch -- and soon they see Pitt, and they tell ground control that, and ground control tells the crew to neutralize Pitt by any and all means (i.e., they are welcome to kill him). All this is happening while the ship is rocketing out into space! Just before, gravity on Mars looked exactly like Earth's -- now, apparently, Mars has almost no gravity at all.
There are three highly trained members of U.S. Space Command aboard this valuable ship, on a top-secret mission to Neptune, only there was absolutely no security perimeter around this launch; the hatch on this ship is less secure than those on commercial airlines; and now, these highly trained space Marines are completely hapless against Pitt. They all end up dead, and Pitt now flies the ship to Neptune. Cue the refrain: you know it by heart.
There is some business about Pitt inserting a feeding tube for the long voyage, which turns out to be 79 days or something like that. Wait, what? Sure, I buy that they figured out how to travel a whole lot faster; but if Neptune is only 79 days away, why has Tommy Lee Jones and crew been out there, all alone, for 30 years? No one thought to check on him?
Of course, our boy Brad makes it out to Neptune -- no more space monkeys -- only to encounter yet another power surge as he nears dad's ship. The surge seems to do some damage, but it doesn't disable his ship (why not?). I might mention here he's bringing a nuke with him, which is meant to destroy the Neptune ship. What is never explained is how Pitt knows how to arm and detonate the nuke; apparently, there is no secret code required, which secret presumably died with the crew Pitt killed. Or else U.S. Space Command radioed the code to Pitt, because...who the h*** knows?
And, anyway, why a nuke? Wouldn't any explosive do the trick? The plan was to take this bomb aboard the renegade ship. Why? They have lasers that send messages, but they can't shoot anything at the threat? What about a guided missile, fired from thousands of miles away. We had those in the 20th century. What about a drone? I'm betting a drone could have been launched from behind one of Neptune's moons? Does it have moons? Why, yes, it has 14 of them!
Or, here's a crazy idea: why not just knock the ship into Neptune? According to Space.com,
Neptune is the third most massive planet. Like the rest of the gas giants, Neptune has no definite surface layer. Instead, the gas transits into a slushy ice and water layer. The water-ammonia ocean serves as the planet's mantle, and contains more than ten times the mass of Earth. Temperatures inside the mantle range from 3,140 degrees Fahrenheit (1,727 degrees Celsius) to 8,540 F (4,727 F). At deep enough depths, the methane may transform into diamond crystals.
Since this ship's unstable antimatter reactor is such a threat to the whole solar system, wouldn't you think blowing it up -- with a nuke! -- would create additional, perhaps unforeseeable risks? Gee, what if you could, instead, shove it into some mass that would absorb the damaging effect, and smother it? Like..."the third most massive planet"? Are you seriously telling me the ship would somehow survive plummeting into Neptune? You know the refrain...
So Pitt gets there, grabs the nuke (about the size of a backpack!), boards a little shuttle that takes him over to the other ship. He carefully pilots the shuttle around the wide rings of Neptune, which are made up of lots and lots of rocks. Remember this detail for later. Only his shuttle can't dock, because of damage to the renegade ship. So Pitt exits the shuttle, opens the hatch, and -- I am not kidding -- pushes away his shuttle! Nope, not going to need that again!
Only he does. We learn shortly that he intends to bring dad home. Whenever needed, Pitt has a tether; he uses one several times. There's no tether on the shuttle? He couldn't go back to his mother ship for one? What exactly is his plan for getting back? Wait till you find out...
He gets on board, everything is eerily silent. He finds the reactor -- apparently it is entirely safe to approach, even though it is wrecking the solar system with unpredictable bursts (yet another reason this whole plan was idiotic, but oh well...). He gets the nuke all ready to go off in three hours, but doesn't turn it on. His plan, it turns out, is to return to the nuke to flip the on switch. Apparently, in the future this can only be done manually, and no one back on Earth thought this might be a flaw in their plan. More to the point: none of the crack scriptwriters thought of it.
Dad shows up. He's calm but a little creepy. To our surprise, he doesn't fight his son, even as he prepares to blow up his life's work. We learn that dad is awfully depressed because his search for life outside the solar system -- the purpose of his mission, and which he was prepared to murder innocents to continue -- was fruitless. He has found only lifeless worlds. Brad talks him into donning a space suit and exit the ship. Brad flips the red switch, and now the bomb starts it's three-hour countdown. (Stupid, stupid.) Somehow they are going to get back to the other ship, and return to earth. Remember, stupid Brad kicked away the shuttle. Their suits do have jet propulsion, however.
Once outside the doomed ship, daddy decides to fire off his propulsion, jeopardizing his son: Brad had carefully attached a tether to both of them, and to the soon-to-be-destroyed ship. The link to the ship is now broken, and both are drifting off in space. Dad says, let me go! Brad has no choice, he cuts him loose, and Tommy Lee Jones floats off.
Questions explode: why did dad stick it out all this time? And, if he is so determined to continue, why does he meekly allow his son to destroy his ship? Or, if he just wants to die, why not pilot the ship into Neptune? I guess this pioneer of space exploration never thought of it!
So now Brad is alone, again. The bomb is ticking as we know. He aims to get back to his ship. He's tumbled through space because of his dad, but he is able to reorient himself and locate his ship; except the rings of Neptune are in his path. Drat! Didn't think of that! So our hero grabs hold of some spinning thingy on the doomed ship, climbs aboard, twiddles some screws or something in the spinning thingy, and pops off a piece of metal! (Some up-and-coming politician back on Earth should open hearings on the gross incompetence of the U.S. Space Command.) Then our hero takes this panel, and uses it as a shield, as he propels himself through the rings of Neptune back to his ship! Yes, this actually works! When he discards his shield, it's got a few pock-marks. Why did he even need a ship at all?
Then he gets back on his ship. By the way, all this in something less than three hours! Then, we learn that his ship's propulsion is somehow diminished, so...he is forced to rely on the nuclear explosion to propel him the 2 billion miles home!
HAHAHAHAHA!
Well, of course, this works! Pitt returns home, and everything is pretty summary; no inkling of any consequences for his crimes which risked a vital mission and caused the deaths of three people; but his ex-wife, who has been lurking in the background throughout the movie, appears. The End.
Now, I want you to go over either to IMBd, or to Rotten Tomatoes, or anyplace you want to scan the various reviews of this movie. When I got home, that's what I did; I wanted to see if any of the people paid to review movies picked up on any of this.
On Metacritic.com: 80% favorable critics reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the "critics' consensus" is 83% fresh! But even the unfavorable critics frontpaged on Rotten Tomatoes ignore the plot fiascoes, complaining instead about wasted performances by almost everyone, plodding pace and the film being boring (all true). Meanwhile, all the professional film-watchers who liked it, loved it, because it was "intelligent" and "beautiful" and "magnificent," with Pitt's performance deemed Oscar-worthy. The film is pretty to look at, and Pitt does turn in a fine performance, but how can they overlook the problems? Are they stupid? Or do they think we are?
The one encouraging thing: most of the viewers' reviews are negative. Way negative, as in:
- "pile of crap"
- "slow and boring"
- "poor science"
- "script was ridiculous."
- "I should have run out of the theater screaming but I fell asleep."
At least we are not stupid. That you can rule out.
(Edited for clarity, 9/25/19)
2 comments:
I’m betting you wish you had continued on with Project 88! Thanks for the input. I wish more priests would comment on crappy movies to help us use our time and treasure wisely!!
So tell us how you REALLY feel. 😂
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