Movie Title: Interstellar
Director: Christopher Nolan
Date Released: November 7th, 2014
Date Seen: November 7th, 2014
Seen With: Dad
Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review
The enwest Christopher Nolan film that we have been excited and waiting months for! It’s finally here! Interstellar, the story of a man who leaves his family behind in hopes to save the entire human race by going on an Interstellar journey. Shocking, I know. I bet you didn’t see that Interstellar journey part coming. Overall this movie is GOREGOUS to look at. That is far and away the best part of the movie. Every little detail from scenes on earth to scenes out in Space are incredible. I could sit and watch them travel through the galaxy for days on end and be completely content. They were fantastic. Nolan’s goal to “wow” or amaze the audience, and the movie does that from the visuals alone.
The plot, overall, is very good. There are of course the usual plot holes (I mention some in part 2 of the review to not spoil anything) and annoyances, but overall it’s very well done. A lot of time is spent on the space plot line, which at times leaves the Earth plot line underdeveloped. It was one of my major issues with the movie. They focus a lot on how certain decisions really impact Cooper (like going on the trip), or how it affects the family, but then skip over some important development parts of that. The movie is very long, because it is a very long and complicated plot line, but didn’t feel long until the end of the movie. It rushed a little bit at the end, which I would have liked to have seen time taken elsewhere to do just a little bit more explaining. That’s my personal preference, however. The movie, being a Christopher Nolan film, does of course have the usual “mind-fuck” as I like to call it. It’s a slow and subtle mindfuck however, and I liked it. You think you know what is going on, then it’ll throw you for a little loop. Or you think you will have figured out plot line A, for plot line B to go crazy, so you forget about plot line A, which then comes back to mindfuck you all over again. It was a nice ride.
The acting is incredible. Mackenzie Foy (young Murph) was just great. Anne Hathaway as Brand and Matthew McConaughey as Cooper were both amazing, but that’s to be expected. I also really liked seeing David Gyasi, who plays one of my favorite characters in Cloud Atlas, Autua. One of my favorite characters is TARS (voiced by Bill Irwin), a robot who takes the journey with the team. He was not only a nice addition to the team, but also made some plot points easier to explain away. It kind of seemed like “oh hey, if we had a robot, we could do this. YEAH WE NEED A ROBOT”. And if that’s how we got TARS, I’m OK with that.
This film does have a very limited rewatchability. I think after 2-3 viewings, it’s not a movie I would ever pick up and watch again. The first watch was a very fun one, and I’d like to go back and watch it again to see if there’s little hints at what is to come that I might have missed before. Beyond that though, I don’t think I’d ever watch it again. I know what happens. It’s pretty. It was cool. End of story. It’s a very well made piece of art, but to me, not what I want in a movie, and that brings the score down for me a bit.
Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review
One thing I loved was the limited detail on what happened to Earth. There wasn’t really a time frame of when the Earth started going to shit, what this new government was like. It keeps the movie a little less dated that way. We knew the important details (crops failing, soon there will be no more food, nor air, must save Earth), and that’s about it.
Some of the parts I thought were VERY underdeveloped were the Earth scenes. It could partially be because of the above reasons, the limited knowledge they give you about what is going on there. But these were some big issues I had. For a 2 hour 48 minute movie, certian plot lines SHOULD be well thought out or explained. These issues start fairly quickly. Take for example when Cooper accepts the mission. He accepts pretty quickly, in my mind, this huge responsibility of saving the world and possibly never seeing his children again. This is right after he throws a huge hissy fit about Murph being in the other room, and then throughout the movie hes affected by his choice to go. Seems like the decsion to go shouldn’t have been a quick scene. The other Earth scenes that are very underdeveloped mostly focus with older Tom and Murph. Why is it so crucial that Tom’s family leave RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND. Why is Tom so anti-them leaving if it’s for their health? Why was Topher Grace even in this movie (what, who said that, not me!)?
Another thing, that could be considered a plot hole, or it’s just something that I’m looking too much into. Professor Brand had already solved his part of the equation a long time ago. But didn’t tell anyone – because it was lacking the gravity part, which he wouldn’t be able to solve without knowing what the inside of the black hole looked like. Why didn’t he just tell people that? I guess to give them *hope* now that Ithink about it, but still seems dumb to me.
I very much enjoyed the visuals inside of the black hole. However, I wasn’t very into the whole idea of “gravity” being the 5th dimension. It wasn’t very well explained as to why/how it was another dimension. It seemed more of a force that could act through the other dimensions (of time and space), but wasn’t really one in my mind. They kind of explained this away by saying “oh, ‘they’ made this into a 3dimensional representation that your brain could understand”. In other wrods, “JUST TRUST US ITS GRAVITY MMMKKKAYYY???”. We could also talk about time travel-y, grandfather paradox-y, etc. type of stuff, but I don’t really care too. I think it’s what Christopher Nolan was trying to avoid by adding in the 5th dimension stuff. Again, “JUST TRUST US ITS GRAVITY MMMMKAAYYY??”
Overall: 7.5/10
Visually stunning, but a background plot line, that is rushed and underdeveloped at times, but still being a good, semi-surprising, sci-fi flick.
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