Interstellar (FILM REVIEW)
Interstellar
Film Review
by Kam Williams
Altruistic Astronauts Seek Alternate for Earth in Post-Apocalyptic Adventure
Christopher Nolan is one of my
favorite directors, and four of his pictures have made my annual Top Ten List,
including Memento, The Dark Knight, Batman Begins and Insomnia. However, I hard
a hard time understanding exactly what was going on in Inception, an
inscrutable mindbender that I found to be a little too hip for the room.
The same could be said about Interstellar, an over-plotted, post-apocalyptic sci-fi with
a few too many layers for its own good, in this critic’s humble opinion. Clocking
in at a patience-testing 169 minutes, the movie had me harking back to 7-time
Oscar-winner Gravity, a similarly-themed outer space adventure which managed to
resolve its loose ends in about half the time.
At the
point of departure, we find the Earth devastated by drought and dust storms
that have brought it to the brink of famine. With the planet almost
uninhabitable, NASA decides that the last hope for humanity rests in finding
another capable of supporting life.
To that end, the
agency is mounting a mission, codenamed Lazarus in order to search for a place
with a compatible environment. The reluctant hero is Coop (Matthew McConaughey),
a man understandably torn about being coaxed out of retirement to captain the
Spaceship Endurance.
On the one hand, the
veteran test pilot is eager, since he never got a chance to experience a real
spaceflight during his career. On the other hand, as a widowed dad, he hates
the very idea of leaving behind and possibly orphaning his already motherless kids.
Sure, 15 year-old Tom
(Timothee Chalamet) might be able to man-up, but daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy)
is only 10 and proves particularly clingy when he informs her of his imminent
travel plans. Her angry reaction is perfectly reasonable, given the blight on
Earth and the odds of ever seeing her papa again.
But with his
father-in-law’s (John Lithgow) blessing, Coop nevertheless opts to depart,
which affords him an opportunity to belatedly pursue his lifelong dream. Joining
him in that endeavor is a crew comprised of brainy scientist Brand (Anne
Hathaway), astrophysicist Romilly (David Gyasi) and intergalactic cartographer
Doyle (Wes Bentley), as well as a couple of very sophisticated robots (Bill
Irwin and Josh Stewart).
After blastoff, they
head for a distant wormhole near Saturn rumored to provide a portal to a
parallel universe. At this juncture, the picture turns terribly talky, relying
on pseudoscientific claptrap to explain every farfetched development from black
holes to unusual gravitational pulls to time slowing down. Eventually, Endurance
rendezvous with a NASA space station stranded on a remote planet where they
rouse the sole survivor from a cryogenic sleep only to discover it’s Matt
Damon. How cool is that?
I’m not too proud to
admit I couldn’t follow the convoluted storyline anymore from about this point
forward. At least the panoramic visuals remained absolutely breathtaking. Think,
a remake of Gravity with a bunch of polysyllabic brainiacs borrowed from The
Big Bang Theory.
Good (2 stars)
Rated PG-13
for intense action and brief profanity
Running time: 169 minutes
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
To see a trailer for Interstellar,
visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vxOhd4qlnA
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