Right OK thought I would do a quick review of a new film that has come out just last week, Interstellar, the latest Christopher Nolan movie, which sees the acclaimed director take step into the realms of science fiction. So how does it stack up??? Well let's give it a look.... (oh and PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!! But don't worry I won't divulge the whole plot!).
So the story is set in the not too distant future where the Earth is no longer able to sustain humanity as crops are being ravaged by blight and dust storms. And the main character of the story, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) who was a former NASA test pilot, is now a farmer who lives with his son Tom, daughter Murphy or "Murphy" and his father in law, Donald (John Lithgow). Murph believes that their house is haunted by a ghost which tries to communicate with them by moving books off the shelf in her room. Cooper then decides to try and decipher the communication attempts and reveals them to be in binary code, which turns out to be co-ordinates, which Cooper follows along with Murphy to a secret NASA base. There Cooper meets with Professor Brand (Michael Caine) who reveals that they have discovered a wormhole in the solar system that orbits Saturn and that the best chance for humanity's future is to traverse the wormhole to find and colonise new worlds. Cooper is then recruited to pilot one of the spaceships, the Endurance to follow a mission where a series of manned capsules are sent through the wormhole to survey the planets for sustainability. Cooper's decision however leaves his daughter, Murph distraught and heartbroken and they part on bad terms. Cooper then joins with Brand's daughter, Amelia (Anne Hathaway), a physicist Romilly (David Gyasi), a georapher Doyle (Wes Bentley) and multiple purpose robots named TARS and CASE on the mission. And from here it is up to Cooper and his crewmates to find a way to travel through the wormhole and find a planet that can sustain and save the future of humanity.
As far as branching out into sci-fi goes, Nolan's Interstellar is something of a disappointment in that he really does go for being just a bit too epic and by that he makes the film inordinately long at just under three hours. The film is also riddled with some obscure scientific concepts and at times the plot itself is a bit hard to follow. Nolan also brings his dark and grim tone to the proceedings aswell which at times can threaten to alienate the viewer but at the same time he also invests just enough in his films as well that you know ultimately he loves to drop the viewer into a scary place and then pull it back just at the last minute. But that in a way is part of the charm of Nolan's films as he usually shows his character trying to overcome adversity and thankfully he does allow for a resolution in one way or another.
Performance wise things are pretty good with McConaughey giving a fine central performance as the cocky but good hearted Cooper, who pilots the Endurance on its mission through the wormhole to try and find new worlds for the sake of huamnity's future. McConaughey has some good moments and his character provides some moments of humour, such as when Cooper quips with TARS, the diverse robot (which is more like a large walking flatscreen TV!) and in one scene he repairs TARS and he resets the robot's personality settings and he says to the robot "I'm gonna set your humour settings at 75%" and TARS jokes "T minus self destruct 10, 9, 8..." and Cooper laughs and says "OK how about 60%" and TARS says "knock knock!" and Cooper continues "You wanna go for 50%???!". McConaughey is also equally capable however in the dramatic scenes such as the scene where Cooper watches the videotapes of his family and he breaks down in tears, overcome with emotion at seeing his family.
The other performances are also pretty good including Michael Caine as Professor Brand who originally discovered the wormhole and presents his theories on how to try and save the future for mankind. Ann Hathaway (looking very nice with her short hair, which suits her!) also is good in her role as Amelia, Brand's daughter, and they made a good decision not to have Cooper and Amelia become romantically linked with one another and have it more largely a business-like relationship, although they do develop a connection later, just not a romantic one. Matt Damon is also good in his role as one of the spacebound scientists, Mann who Cooper and the others later discover, only to find that he is not all what he seems to be. And lastly Casey Affleck puts in a decent turn as the older version of Cooper's son, Tom, as does Jessica Chastain as Cooper's grown up daughter, Murphy, who plays a key part in trying to save the future.
Direction wise Nolan does well enough with the action in the film and he handles the space scenes confidently as well as the film's more melodramatic moments and he makes good use of the film locations, particularly in Iceland, where some of the other world sequences are shot, and he makes good use of the film's visual effects for spaceships and the station. The film also features a pretty decent film score by Hans Zimmer, although it is not recognisibly one of his best and he does at certain points rip off 2001: A Space Odyssey by using organ music.
As for the flaws of the film well as I said the film's main problem is its length as at 2 hours and 50 minutes its just too long and the film feels flabby with a rather slow build up to the space journey and the journey itself has some very slow moments. The film's plot is also hard to follow at times and they use alot of scientific jargon, which can throw the viewer as well and ultimately the film ends on a rather silly note in regards to the future of mankind and like all these types of film it may take a few viewings to get the gist of it all. I also felt that the film introduced a silly melodramatic note with (PLOT SPOILER!!!!) the almost obligatory nod toward Matt Damon's character going a bit nuts and trying to kill Cooper at one point in the film and its like they just had to put something like that somewhere in there! It also has to be said that the film overall tries too hard to be ambitious in its scope and scale and by doing that and stretching the screen time it more likely will end up boring audiences rather than thrilling them.
So to sum is Interstellar a great film??? Nope it isn't and it certainly isn't one of Nolan's best either by a long shock, however it is still a fairly interesting and thought provoking one despite its flaws and its unecessary length, and it is worth a watch (if only once) if you are in anyway curious about seeing it.
And with that I shall leave you there and will be back soon with more reviews.
Bye for now!
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