If you can't show us the story in two hours, there had better be a very good reason. But Ad Astra just couldn't be told in two hours...and it wasn't. The problem began with the writer and the director being the same person: there's no one around to say, "Uh, Jim, this isn't working." Then there is the problem of the first person narrative. If the protagonist is the storyteller, then every bit of his narrative must be included, or we won't understand, much less appreciate, his story. In Ad Astra, Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) - a cool, analytical individual - has a lot to say - to himself if not anyone else. Unfortunately, two hours just wasn't long enough to say it, so the audience is denied a lot of what has compelled him to accept his mission. A good third-party director would have raised the questions. It may have resulted in a longer script, but, on balance, it would have been a better one.
