Ad Astra Review: 7 Ups & 3 Downs

6. The Stunning Visual Effects & Cinematography

In conjunction with Pitt's magnetic work, this is an absolute visual marvel of a film, and it's staggering that the final budget was less-than-half of a typical summer blockbuster.

For starters, the visual effects are sublime throughout the production, presenting an entirely believable rendition of space that never lets the facade flip.

A great care has clearly been taken to present a photo-realistic vision of the expanse beyond Earth, and never once does it draw attention to its own artifice.

Almost equally fantastic is the film's cinematography, which comes by way of Hoyte van Hoytema, who of course did such a marvelous job shooting Christopher Nolan's Interstellar.

Together, these elements create one of the year's most impressive visual feasts to date, and one well worth seeking out on the biggest screen possible.