Interstellar

Released: November 2014

Director: Christopher Nolan

Run Time: 169 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Cast:
Matthew McConaughey: Cooper
John Lithgow: Donald
Anne Hathaway: Brand
Michael Caine: Professor Brand
Wes Bentley: Doyle
David: Gyasi: Romilly
Matt Damon: Mann
Jessica Chastain: Murph
Topher Grace: Getty
Casey Affleck: Tom

I have a question I would to put to you all:  If the world as you knew it was coming to an end, and the only way to save mankind was to to find another planet to live on, would you do it?  The catch?  You would have to leave behind everything you have ever known and loved with the possibility of never coming back.  I want you to think about that question for a little bit.  I’ll address that a little later.  When 2001: A Space Odyssey came out in 1968, it changed the way we look at science fiction and how we saw our future in space.  It was slow, but deliberate.  It visually striking and dealt with the science of space travel fairly realistically.  This movie came out before we landed on the moon, so it was incredibly intriguing.  It was criticized for being too slow, but that was a deliberate choice on Stanley Kubrick’s part.  The film’s use of music, combined with the aesthetics of outer space made for a compelling space opera of sorts.  It’s not an action movie, so some people were turned away.  But the film we got was incredibly smart, beautiful and hypnotic.  It was the first film I reviewed for this website, and I consider 2001 to be one of the greatest science fiction movies ever made.  So, it seems interesting that my generation’s 2001 comes in the form of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.

Opening in a future after overpopulation and ecological disasters have reduced mankind’s workforce to farmers, including former NASA pilot, Cooper.  Faced with the possibility of not having food for the season, humanity seems to be on the brink of total annihilation.  After discovering coordinates in the form of binary codes, Cooper and his daughter, Murph find the location of a hidden NASA outpost.  This group of scientists have devised a plan to find another planet to inhabit as Earth appears to be dying.  As it happens, they have discovered a wormhole near the planet Saturn that appears to be a gateway to another galaxy.  Cooper just happens to be the best pilot that NASA had so they recruit him to pilot the ship that will explore the vast reaches of space in the hopes of finding a new home.  Torn between leaving his family behind and trying to save mankind, Cooper reluctantly agrees to pilot the craft.  Remember the question I asked earlier, about sacrificing everything to save humanity?  That question lies at the heart of Interstellar and makes for a compelling and human story.  While I enjoyed most of Christopher Nolan’s prior films, none of them have actually connected with me on an emotional level.  Interstellar does.  At the heart of the story is a man trying to do the right thing for his family, and that means leaving them behind for a greater good.

Christopher Nolan has always managed to get good performances from his actors in his other movies, but not like this.  The acting in this film is superb, and it really connects with you on an emotional level.  Matthew McConaughey anchors the film as Cooper.  We can tell that he really loves his family and is emotionally torn between being there for them and leaving the Earth to find a new planet, so they can have a future.  John Lithgow plays Donald, Coopers father-in-law and his voice of reason.  Michael Caine plays Professor Brand, the man who came up with the science and the plan to save humanity.  While he seems to be a regular in Nolan’s movies, Caine is in top form here.  Anne Hathaway plays his daughter who volunteers to be a part of the mission.  While she comes across as a bit stand-offish at first, you begin to see how she reacts to everything and it takes an emotional toll on her as well.  All the actors bring their A-game and as a result we have some of the greatest performances of 2014.  Getting the audience to truly connect with characters is fairly new ground for Christopher Nolan, but he has a talent for really making these people human.  So when they are faced with real dangers, we fear for them.  The best movies often have actors in roles that you can relate to because they seem so real, and the actors make it real.

It also helps that the visuals in Interstellar are well…..stellar.  This movie is a visual treat and you have to see it in high definition to really get the scope of what’s on screen.  The ship’s entry into the wormhole is one of the most interesting things I’ve ever seen.  It’s absolutely nuts.  When they emerge from the wormhole they try to land on a planet that’s covered in water.  Because it so close to a black hole, it has a huge effect on the tidal waves.  These things are MASSIVE.  It’s incredibly intense to see them try and get away.  There’s an ice planet that they visit that is stunning.  Iceland seems to be a very popular country to film movies like Interstellar and Oblivion.  Iceland offers a very bleak, desolate and yet extraordinarily beautiful landscape.  Even when the ship is passing by Saturn, you really get the feeling of being there in the ship when they pass by the rings.  It sends chills up your spine.  The visuals in the film are among the best I’ve ever seen.  The robots are also pretty cool.  Like 2001, Nolan wanted to make this movie as real as possible, so he hired theoretical physicist Kip Thorne to help out.  They’re dealing with a lot of unknowns when dealing astro-phsyics and quantum mechanics so some of that may be confusing for some people.  Some of that definitely went over my head, but it lends a little more authenticity and reality to what’s happening on the screen.

While the film definitely has intense moments, it’s by and large a drama set in outer space.  It just happens to work very well.  I made comparisons to 2001, but it’s really hard not to.  The film has a lot of detail in it, like 2001.  But some of the sequences don’t necessarily work that well.  I’m not going to spoil it, but towards the end of the movie, things get a little too weird.  Add on top of that, Nolan also indulges in one of the biggest cliches I’ve ever seen in a sci-fi movie: stranded survivor that isn’t who or what he appears to be.  I’ll say no more on that, other than it is a nail-biting scene.  It’s just not wholly original.  While the film is nearly 3 hours long, I didn’t really notice as it kept my attention.  But there are scenes that could have been trimmed a little bit.

The music by Hans Zimmer doesn’t disappoint.  It has very Phillip Glass-feel to it which makes it very hypnotic and intense.  It’s definitely not the usual shtick that Zimmer conjures up for his movies.  The music is absolutely unique and really adds to the emotion of the goings-on.  I’ve really become a huge fan of Hans Zimmer of the past decade because his music is usually grand and epic, but the music in Interstellar is different.  But that’s a good thing.  We don’t really want the same kind of stuff over and over.  While the film isn’t perfect, it still stands heads and shoulders above a lot of other movies that were released last year.  Interstellar is one of those movies that you have to see to believe.  It’s extraordinary in its scope and the performances by the actors outshine most of the movies in 2014.

I wrote this because NASA actually has a mission planned that will put men on Mars in the next 30 or so years.  It’s also a one-way trip, so the people who are volunteering for it will have to give up everything they have ever known for this venture.  I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I have the kind of courage that is required for such a massive undertaking.  But it’s an undertaking that needs to happen.  The tagline of Interstellar is “Man was born here, but it was not meant to die here.”  Space exploration is the last great frontier that we have yet to truly breach, and the potential for humanity to grow beyond its cradle is something that should inspire everyone.  I’ve always believe that our future as a species is not on Earth.  It can only sustain us for so long, so it’s only natural that we need to explore and expand into other parts of our solar system and the rest of the galaxy.  There is so much out there, that the odds of finding a planet much like our own is relatively high.  Maybe that’s just the optimist in me, but I think that space exploration should bring us together so we CAN have a future.  Interstellar gives a potential glimpse into such a future.  This movie is highly recommended.  I’m giving a 10/10.  This one is not to be missed.

Bookmark the permalink.

One Comment

  1. Just watched the movie and can honestly say that you hit the nail right on the head in your review. Outstanding job.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.