The End of Violence (Wim Wenders, 1997)

Cast: Bill Pullman, Andie MacDowell, Gabriel Byrne, Traci Lind, Loren Dean, Rosalind Chao, K. Todd Freeman, Daniel Benzali, Samuel Fuller, Udo Kier, Marisol Padilla Sánchez, Peter Horton, Pruitt Taylor Vince, John Diehl, Frederic Forrest, Enrique Castillo, Henry Silva. Screenplay: Nicholas Klein, Wim Wenders. Cinematograhy: Pascal Rabaud. Production design: Patricia Norris. Film editing: Peter Przygodda. Music: Howie B, Ry Cooder, DJ Shadow.  

Ad Astra (James Gray, 2019)

Brad Pitt in Ad Astra

Cast: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, Ruth Negga, Kimberly Elise, Loren Dean, Liv Tyler, Donnie Keshawarz, Sean Blakemore, Bobby Nish, LisaGay Hamilton, John Finn, John Ortiz. Screenplay: James Gray, Ethan Gross. Cinematography: Hoyte Van Hoytema. Production design: Kevin Thompson. Film editing: John Axelrad, Lee Haugen. Music: Max Richter.

It's said that there are really only two types of sci-fi movies: space Westerns and mind-bogglers. The Star Wars canon would be the archetype of the former, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) of the latter. But James Gray seems to want to bridge the types in Ad Astra, with some exciting action sequences in the first half of the film, including a spectacular fall by the protagonist, Roy McBride (Brad Pitt), from a space station near enough to the Earth for him to be affected by gravity, and an exciting chase sequence involving moon pirates. But then the film shifts into something more mythic, a father-son fable with overtones of Oedipus and Laius, Daedalus and Icarus, Orestes and Agamemnon, Abraham and Isaac, and so on. It goes from action to introspection so suddenly that it lost a lot of its audience, who may have gone in expecting something like Armageddon (Michael Bay, 1998) and found themselves watching something more like Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life (2011), and not just because Pitt sometimes seems to be reprising his character from the Malick film. Gray also makes nods to the Kubrick classic, with some wry twists: In 2001, for example, space flight has been commercialized, so that people travel to the moon on Pan Am (an airline that went out of business before the real 2001 rolled around). In Ad Astra, the moon flight is on Virgin, and Gray slips in a dig at today's commercial aviation when Roy requests a blanket and pillow and is told that the charge for them is $125. Earthlike crime and corruption have also infected travel in space: Not only are there pirates on the moon, the international competition for mineral rights has bred distrust. The American program has been militarized, with the usual consequences of rank-pulling and official secrecy screwing things up. Pitt carries the film as he has never carried one before, having developed a gift for revealing the internal torment carefully masked by external stoicism. I have a feeling that Ad Astra, though reckoned a bit of a box office disappointment at the time, is going to grow in stature over the years, along with Gray's reputation as a director.

Gattaca (Andrew Niccol, 1997)

Ethan Hawke and Gore Vidal in Gattaca

Vincent Freeman: Ethan Hawke
Irene Cassini: Uma Thurman
Jerome Morrow: Jude Law
Director Josef: Gore Vidal
Detective Hugo: Alan Arkin
Anton Freeman: Loren Dean
Dr. Lamar: Xander Berkeley
German: Tony Shalhoub
Caesar: Ernest Borgnine
Marie Freeman: Jayne Brook
Antonio Freeman: Elias Koteas

Director: Andrew Niccol
Screenplay: Andrew Niccol
Cinematography: Slawomir Idziak
Production design: Jan Roelfs
Film editing: Lisa Zeno Churgin
Music: Michael Nyman

It's refreshing these days to see a science fiction movie not dependent on special effects to make its point, which is why the 21-year-old Gattaca feels retro, even dated in so many ways. The focus remains on ideas about genetic manipulation as its protagonist, Vincent, tries to elude detection as an "in-valid" -- one who was conceived in the messy old random way rather than the "valid" one of pre-screened fertilization that produced his brother, Anton. Vincent wants to go to space, and by working with a shady organization that provides in-valids with the identities of certified valids, he gets his chance, taking on the identity of Jerome Morrow, an athlete who was so depressed at coming in second that he walked in front of a moving car and is crippled for life. The film strains a bit to persuade us that people will accept Vincent's new identity, since Ethan Hawke's Vincent doesn't look a lot like Jude Law's Jerome, except in an ID photo that tries to strike some kind of plausible middle between the two. And later in the film we'll be forced to believe that Vincent and his brother, Anton, don't immediately recognize each other as the grownup versions of the siblings who used to compete with each other in swimming races. But suspension of disbelief aside, Gattaca manages to be a fairly witty and intelligent film. I particularly like the scene in which Vincent/Jerome and the other astronauts board the spaceship to Titan, wearing business suits, not the usual Mylar spacesuits we associate with space travel. It reminds me a bit of the men who board the rocket ship in Georges Méliès's A Trip to the Moon (1902), wearing top hats.