Christopher Nolan's Interstellar may very well be one of the best movies that have come out in the year of 2014.
The film starts off by more or less depicting what the near future Earth looks like. Much like in the movie The Martian all the technology looks futuristic, but it always seems like it could already exist today, if only as a prototype. The directors manage quite well to bring across the massive problems and the looming threat of extinction the human race faces by simply showing us the daily life of ex-pilot, engineer and now farmer Cooper and the problems he faces. We see the distant crops burning away, giving us a sense of the increasing scarcity of food, as crop after crop is being destroyed by the blight and only corn can survive. We see the plates being turned down on the table, as the dust has become omnipresent. We see the shift of society, as the teachers of Cooper's misbehaving daughter try to convince him that the Apollo mission did in fact not happen and they make it quite plain that in this society no engineers, astronauts or scientists are needed, but farmers, and that is what he should teach his children to be. Not only does this set up the world quite perfectly, we also get characterizing moments. Cooper, as the film quite often states, is out of place in this world. He looks skywards, whilst the rest looks at the dust and earth below them. The shared moments with his children show his love and affection for both of them, he respects their interests and treads them accordingly. The seemingly paranormal sightings also characterize our second main character at an early stage, Murph. She quite literally follows his footsteps and adopts the scientific ways, she is curious, intelligent and more than anything stubborn. The family grows on you amazingly quickly and his farewell scenes are made all the more hurtful.
It is here that I would already like to mention Nolan's attention to detail and love of practical effects. He literally bought acres of corns to avoid CGI as much as possible for just a few scenes. Whenever CGI is used, and of course in a movie mainly taking place in space there has to be a lot of it, it could just as well be practical effects, by all you know, if only some of it wouldn't be possible. The visual effects are simply stunning and most importantly not noticeable.
As we are being shot into space with Cooper, we run into a few minor problems Interstellar has. After he stumbles onto the secret NASA facility, giving us another glimpse at the world building, that may not be complex but it certainly gives us the illusion of complexity, he gets to pilot a spacecraft in space without getting into shape or ready for space in any way. Having arrived on the space station, the movie struggles to find ways to explain the complex science behind what they are trying to do and so they resort to a scientist explaining the concept of wormholes (exactly the way the teacher did it to the kids in Stranger Things by poking a hole into a sheet of paper) to another scientist. The same happens again later in the movie when the same guy explains to Cooper that time is relative. Nevertheless, even if the exposition may at times be wonky, the actual use and depiction of science is spot-on and nothing like I've ever seen in another movie on such an...interstellar scale. The plot and premise of Interstellar is so unique and amazing precisely because it explores the unexplored aspects of physics, like the concept of wormholes and black holes, and just rolls with it. Every scene in space or another planet looks fantastic and the sheer size of everything, whether it's the massive tidal waves caused by the black hole, the vast ice desert or the black hole itself, really makes you feel helpless and small, whilst still being overtaken by its beauty.
Probably the most emotional scene of the entire two hours is established using the previously mentioned relativity of time. After spending unintended three hours on the black hole-orbiting planet, they return to their station, to their colleague, realizing that decades have past. We are now forced to watch Cooper sit there and have to undergo decades worth of emotions in a few minutes, as the computer displays all the messages his family had sent over the years. It was truly a test for the wonderful actor and if you haven't felt for the protagonist, who more or less carries the movie along with Murph, before you certainly have after this scene. The other side-characters do indeed feel a bit one-sided and unexplored, but that's okay, it's not their story and you always realize the stakes for every character, adding weight to every decision they make. The comic-relief, a robot names TARS with a humour setting of 75 - 100%, is surprisingly likeable and funny, adding the much needed light-hardheartedness.
Parts of the movies do eventually get a bit silly and some scenes feel out of place, like when Dr. Brand talks about love being the only thing that can travel through dimensions next to gravity and two scientists fist-fighting in another galaxy on another planet. The plot concerning Dr. Mann was fine and a murder attempt does actually fit, but the fist-fight was unnecessarily ridiculous.
Following this, however, we get to the most thrilling scene of the entire movie. The spacecraft trying to dock a space station, spinning out of control, by spinning with it. It's here that I would like to mention two things: the score and the lack of sound. You don't see many movies taking place in space that actually show the lack of sound in space and even fewer that use it as a way of instilling fear in us, fear of the vast emptiness and apathy of space. Then, the score. I know a few people that get annoyed by Hanz Zimmer's style of music but many more absolutely ravel in it, as do I. The soundtrack is most of the time idle and you can feel the stellar, spacey aspects of it but when needed it erupts into what you imagine a burst of creativity must sound like. On top of that he brilliants made most of the beats hit every single second, imitating a clock, since time is the main aspect of the movie. Sometimes, in fact, he even uses a clock for his music.
At last, the movie ends with Cooper meeting his dying daughter, creating an arguably even more emotional scene, before eventually ending the film on an optimistic note, leaving you with tons of emotions inside and probably only noticing now that you have to pee, because you had been glued to the screen for the entire time.
A cinematic masterpiece and benchmark for movies to come.
In "Interstellar", a film written and directed by Christopher Nolan,
climate change has decimated most of the world's food supplies.
Towns are regularly ravaged by fierce sand storms, and
everything is covered with thick layers of dust.
A very select group of scientists set out to embark
on humanities most ambitious mission: travel through
a newly discovered wormhole into another galaxy.
They hope of collecting the necessary data to either move
many people onto a new experimental gravitation spaceship, or find a new Earth altogether.
I have now watched this movie twice at an IMAX.
After my first viewing, when the credits rolled,
I sat there perplexed and was unable to move. I was paralysed
by what I had seen. I looked around, I was not the only one.
Unquestionably, one of the greatest movies I had ever seen.
I was almost ashamed to admit it, because it felt like I had no
say in this decision whatsoever.
There are many moments when "Interstellar" transcends into
something so artistic, you are left speechless and are moved to tears.
The cinematography and directing is, even by Nolan's standards,
his best work so far. I think his talent is even too profound for
the Academy of Motion Pictures, hence why he has yet to receive an oscar
for directing. Personally, after watching "Interstellar", I consider
him to be the best director that is currently alive, only rivalled
by Kubrick and Hitchcock.
Hans Zimmer wrote the score and I really recommend to read how
he translated Nolan's fantastic ideas into music.
I get goosebumps just thinking about the high-speed docking scene,
and you will, too! The sound engineers did an amazing job contrasting
the cosmic silence with Zimmer's incredibly ethereal music.
During the rocket launch, the entire theatre shook and you were
really feeling the thrust.
If I was forced to describe the score, I would say it was
heavily influenced by Johann Strauß, Philip Glass and Bach.
Truly a masterpiece that deserves to be revisited many times and
among all the great soundtracks he has ever done, this is simply
on an entirely different level. His most intimate work.
The visual effects were breathtaking - quite literally.
The on-screen silence during certain parts of the movie
was only rivalled by the complete and utter silence
of my fellow IMAX watchers. Nobody said a word, nobody moved.
Just hundreds of mesmerized people staring at the screen,
or digging their fingers into their armrests during
some of the most tense moments I have ever seen.
"Interstellar" depicts astrophysical concepts that
have never been seen or discussed on-screen before.
"Awesome", in its most literal sense, really describes it.
When I set out to write this review, I really tried to
avoid superlatives, and give you a more nuanced opinion
of why I think this movie deserves to be ranked among
the best, but I now see how I have failed.
I recommend to watch "Interstellar" at an IMAX,
or the best movie theatre around you.
It's not something you should rent at a Red Box or watch on Netflix.
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light." -Dylan Thomas
Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here.
I had a privilege to experience in the theater in a freakin BIG SCREEN. I wasn't a movie buff nor I used to go to the movies when this was released. But we had a screening at our place, and I freakin loved it.
It's a bold, beautiful cosmic adventure story with a touch of the surreal and the dreamlike.
It’s damn near three hours long. There’s that. Also, Interstellar is a space odyssey with no UFOs, no blue-skinned creatures from another planet, no alien bursting from the chest of star Matthew McConaughey.
Just as his Batman trilogy was far more philosophical and knottily plotted than the average superhero movie, Interstellar is sufficiently grand and challenging to bear comparison with those two touchstones of mind-bending epic sci-fi: Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Tarkovsky’s Solaris.
Hans Zimmer’s music makes the film seem even more colossal than it would otherwise: Zimmer invokes the original meaning of ‘pulls out all the stops’, rattling our teeth with reverberating pipe-organ chords. And the acting is as full-blooded as anything you’d find in an earthbound drama.
Next comes the wow factor that makes Interstellar nirvana for movie lovers. A high-tension docking maneuver. A surprise visitor. A battle on the frozen tundra. A tidal wave the size of a mountain.
Newton's third law – the only way humans have ever figured out of getting somewhere is to leave something behind.
Oh, wow, this is difficult to rate. It's technically very good but I don't really like it. So I'll go with a 7/10.
The good stuff:
The bad stuff:
So in the end it was an interesting movie but I don't really feel good after watching it. The drama is kinda fine because it's basically there from the beginning to the end so I didn't start to really care about any of the characters anyway (which is normally a bad thing but in this case I prefer that). The thing that get's me though is that it shows how much we humans don't know and unfortunately that's very true (so my thoughts signifficantly amplify that). We could even be living in a simulation. We basically don't know what living/existance is. We can observe our environment and create models for how things work and use that to predict the future but we don't know how the universe was created, if there's only one, how long our universe will last, etc. And that makes me question the meaning of life. I like living but does it even matter in any way at the end? Will humanity have a lasting impact or will we just be some dumb virus in our galaxy that tried to spread but failed.
Quite scary to think about such stuff... So I'll better end this review now :)
A beautiful, ambitious riddle that tackles the weighty topics of time displacement, space exploration, fatherhood and the end of life on Earth. Not necessarily in that order. Like Christopher Nolan's preceding mind-stompers, Inception and The Prestige, it's a crafty, sprawling creation that feeds and grows based on sheer conceptual might. I found it less accessible and rewarding than those two, however, overreaching in the third act to reel us back in after a few digressions.
Most of the climax feels like an ill fit, too, discarding two hours' worth of rigorous scientific detail in exchange for a trippy, convoluted plot device and a fairytale ending. In a lot of ways, it's like a mainstream adaptation of the finale seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey, a clear inspiration, in that it's bright, blurry, colorful and confusing. Only this time, the static leads to a cookie cutter epilogue, not a blank canvas.
Such complaints notwithstanding, I greatly enjoyed most of the ride to reach that point, even if it has a tendency to belabor a point. Nolan's vision of a near-death civilization on our home soil is vibrant and real. His emphasis on the pain of separation and the dizzying potential of galactic time-shifts are powerful and moving. It's a real visual stunner, too, making hay with staggering CG representations of theoretical deep-space star configurations that left me slack-jawed more than once.
As a space nerd, that was very cool to breathe in, and seeing practical demonstrations of so many abstract concepts is wonderful. It's excellent at many things, frankly, but perhaps a bit too overzealous for its own good.
The idea of space travel is frightening and daunting. I personally would never be able to do the things that the characters in this film do. Imagine the claustrophobia within a space ship knowing that the expanse of Space is right outside the porthole. Regardless of whether you believe in God or any form of an afterlife, one of my sincerest hopes is to somehow witness the wonders of the Universe firsthand. "Interstellar" offers a glimpse into that possibility but is grounded in the limitations of Man's science and technology. Even though this film trumpets the need to explore the galaxy, it tethers itself by choosing to hammer home the message that the force of Love is greater than that of Gravity.
I am a parent that has watched one of my children grow into adulthood while the other is still a teen. It was very heartwarming but also sad to hear Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) talk to his daughter Murphy about how, the moment you have kids, you become nothing but a memory to them. A ghost. It turns out that this plays an important role in saving the world, but it emotionally pulls on you. It created tears that felt a bit manipulated. Most moviegoers put a lot of value in how a film affects them emotionally and "Interstellar" provides this in abundance. It wasn't to the abhorrent levels of, say, the final moments of "Toy Story 3", but it really killed what I ultimately hoped would be a greater exploration of the unknown. Cooper, the great explorer, is as much of a sentimental fool as I am. This is the biggest miss of "Interstellar". If I had wanted something this overwhelmingly emotional, I could have watched "Beaches" or something. Did people really see "Interstellar" to get a weepy drama?
My opening thoughts read as though I disliked this film. Fact is, I mostly enjoyed it. I was amazed by its use of sound more than the visuals, which I thought were purposely dulled. The color palette for space was nearly black and white but I tend to believe that space isn't "Star Wars" shiny, anyway. The planet-scapes were massive but a little disappointing. The wave world seemed to only exist within the context of the film to reinforce the plot's insistence on impacting the characters with the passing of time. The success of this is illustrated by the effect of time on Romilly back on the docking station. While Cooper and crew are only on the surface of the wave world for a few hours, they return to Endurance to find he has aged over 23 years! This moment hit me more than all others. Imagine being totally isolated for so many years. Romilly even chose to forgo cryo-sleep for the most part.
The TARS robot is potentially this generation's R2D2 and C3PO wrapped into one. At first it seemed like a clumsy square box, but it certainly was no such thing. It was the greatest creation the film offered. The teamwork of TARS and Cooper docking their ship had me leaning in my seat trying to help them lock on to the Endurance. Then, the two of them team up to battle the ominous black hole. And considering that moment, the sequence made astounding use of sound. I've read and tried to comprehend theories of what happens when you enter a black hole, but I've never considered it to be noisy. I thought there was no sound in space, but the on-screen action made me not care about such things. Since so much of time and space is theoretical, you can roll with Nolan's interpretations here.
The second act and its inclusion of Dr. Mann doesn't seem needed except to provide a couple of action sequences.
The final 20 minutes were pretty muddled and hurried. There are too many twists to comprehend and let sink in before the next one pops. A little less time crying and a little more time plotting would have been appreciated.
The dimensions of space and time as we understand them must be expanded here to allow additional theorizing, which was difficult for me even having the most rudimentary understanding of "how things work" (turns out, Math is hard).
So the bottom line is that "Interstellar" mostly worked for me. Since Christopher Nolan is held as one of the current great directors, I feel forced to compare his works against each other. This film was not nearly as successful to me as my favorite Nolan-work, "The Dark Knight", or even its prequel and sequel. It doesn't rank with "The Prestige", either. And honestly, I'd have to watch "Momento" another ten times to know what I think of that mind-bender. This does easily bypass the make-crap-up-as-you-go delivery of "Inception", though.
It is good to see someone being allowed to make big-budget films like this. While I have been complimentary and critical, I certainly lack the ability to do anything approaching this accomplishment. One of the most encouraging things about Nolan is that he's making movies that require people to pay attention in a culture that's losing the ability to concentrate and focus. Odds are that mankind's future is more "Idiocracy" than "Interstellar", but there may still be some hope for the latter.
"Do not go gentle into that good night; Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light".
The story is about a team of explorers undertakes the most important mission in human history; traveling beyond this galaxy to discover whether mankind has a future among the stars.
Christopher Nolan once said that 2001: A Space Odyssey was his all time favorite film and how he wanted to do a small tribute to he's next film. And then comes a movie called "Interstellar" that will put a smile on Kubrick face if he was alive today, because Interstellar is one of the best movie of 2014 and the best movie experience I've had at the cinema.
I saw this movie in IMAX and all through out this film I felt like I was in space floating around with Mconaughey and Anne Hathaway. I had that feeling that I was going deep into space just like are main character's, going deep into space just like the viewing auditions and me.
The visual effect's in this movie are some of the most stunning, beautiful and Jaw dropping effect's I've seen since 2001: A Space Odyssey. The performances were brilliant, The cinematography was breathtaking and hard to look away. The directing by Christopher Nolan and let me get this out there, this man is a true director; he knows cinema and knows how to interested people into seeing he's films and I'm still shocked that he hasn't won an Oscar yet.
Now most people or critics have said that last third of this movie ruined the movie for them, but I actually like the ending to the movie. It's new for Nolan because he always ends on a deep and cold note, but this movie didn't and I didn't mind it.
My only nick pick with the movie is some of the character's in this movie wasn't all that interesting. Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain are the only character's that to me were interesting and I cared for them, but the rest of the character's I didn't really care for.
Overall Interstellar is a mind-blowing movie with fantastic visual's, interesting story line and the movie will keep you interested till the end.
So I just saw Interstellar and I have mixed feelings about it. If the only factor in this review was what I saw visually, then I would give this a 10/10. With Christopher Nolan he has such healthy blend of practical and computer generated effects that it's often hard to tell which is which. Part of what I love about him is that whenever he has the opportunity to use a practical effect over a computer generated one he'll take it. And when he executes a practical effect he does not skimp out.There's a scene in which the truck goes off the dirt path and runs through a cornfield. If the same script was handed to a different director it's difficult to imagine that it would have been done with as much effort. With Christopher Nolan you could see the path being created by the vehicle in many overhead shots. And because it's a practical effect you have a limited amount of opportunities to get the shot just right. Many directors would show the truck going in to the cornfield but then limit the shot to only being within the vehicle from that point on. I'm happy to say that Christopher Nolan puts effort into the shots that he's filming instead of taking the easy route.
I really loved the movie visually and I thought the concept was pretty cool, but, alas, there are other aspects that make up a movie for me and some of these aspects were not done as well. Most of the performances were pretty great, but unfortunately the child actor playing Murph had a few slip-ups. Yes, she was able to cry from her tear ducts, but her performance was not really convincing. During what should be crucial and emotional scenes, her emphasis and enunciation was so off that I wasn't really able to get into them. Matthew McConaughey's performance held up nicely, so those scenes weren't completely lost, but it was distracting to have one performance stick out like that when everyone else was doing so well.
The score by Hans Zimmer was pretty great as usual. It's not his best score and it did get used pretty repetitively, but it was pretty great overall. I really liked the robots in the movie. Now, I'm aware that the design of these robots is so incredibly impractical that it would never happen in real life, but it was cool to watch them perform different tasks and use their bodies in sort of a Swiss army knife way. Their characters were very humourous and added a lot to my enjoyment of the film. And I'm a little forgiving when it comes to the impracticality of the design because it is clearly an homage to the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The biggest problem I have with this movie has to do with the script. I can't think of a single other Christopher Nolan film that had so many moments that I would call 'sappy'. In many ways it seemed as though this story wasn't all that original. It was clearly inspired from films like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Sunshine",and I'm not sure I would call it better than either of those films. it is quite the pet peeve of mine when love is used to save the day.And in a Christopher Nolan movie I kind of expected better than that. So when Anne Hathaway's character started speaking in a way that seemed as though it was setting up some sort of future reincorporation saying:"Oh, love transcends all dimensions!" I was seriously hoping her character was just crazy, despite the tone of the movie explicitly implying that it would be reincorporated seriously later.Unfortunately, I was right and it was reincorporated later seriously.When you're going to reincorporate something it's best if you can't call out which scenes are going to be reincorporated before it happens.Like, seriously, as soon as Anne Hathaway started talking about it, all I could think was: "Oh God, please no." Yeah, love is totally not a chemical reaction in our bloodstream that exists to coerce reproduction. Love is magical and it transcends space and time! And the worst part about them not only including but reincorporating that line about love transcending dimensions,is that the movie could have been the exact same without that ever being mentioned and the logic would not have been changed at all. I don't see how the film's logic would have made any more or less sense if they didn't mention that. Like, when Matthew McConaughey was fucking around with the past,he was attached to a specific room and not a person.Like, if she didn't go back to that room as an adult then they would have been fucked. Like, if love for your children was the determining factor in this space equation, then shouldn't you have been attached to her and not a room? I got the impression that the outcome of that scene depended on specific coordinates, so I really don't see how love transcending dimensions had any effect on anything that happened.
Also, did no one find it weird how she immediately jumped to the conclusion "Oh, you're my ghost"? Like, is there any person, especially a scientist, that would ever come up with that conclusion? Like, of course nobody believed you!There were no logical steps that would be taken to come up with that conclusion. I just love it when characters pull things out of their asses that happened to be 100% fact and ultimately decide the outcome of the film.It never feels cheap at all no matter how many times it happens.
Anyway, I enjoyed the movie overall and I found it to be worth the price of admission. If you find yourself heavily weighting a film's visual aestethic into your overall rating, then go see this film and I'd imagine you'll really love it. The small issues I had with the plot aren't bound to affect everyone, so go see the film and judge it for yourself. Conceptually, I really loved what this movie did with time, and it made for some really emotional scenes. Even though I thought this movie was visually fantastic, overall it didn't wow me in the way that I hoped it would. That's pretty much all I've got to say about it for now.
"Interstellar," a cosmic voyage that equally fascinates and frustrates, embodies the ambitious storytelling of Christopher Nolan, blending stunning visuals with, at times, cumbersome exposition (to be honest I never got what the constant aspect ratio change is trying to achieve). The film commences in a future Earth, teetering on the brink of extinction, where we're introduced to Cooper, a multifaceted character portrayed as an engineer, farmer, and reluctant astronaut whose depth occasionally gets muddled by the film's reliance on expositional dialogue. As Cooper journeys through wormholes and beyond, the narrative ambitiously tackles themes of love, time, and survival in the vast emptiness of space.
Characterization varies, with some members of the space expedition feeling underdeveloped, reducing the impact of pivotal moments and emotional stakes. Nolan's choice to explore complex scientific concepts, like relativity and black holes, often feels weighed down by the necessity of explanatory dialogue. Yet, these moments are counterbalanced by breathtaking visuals and a score by Hans Zimmer that elevates the cinematic experience, making space feel simultaneously majestic and menacing.
Despite its narrative and auditory missteps, including a sometimes overly idealistic script and sound mixing that can obscure dialogue, "Interstellar" remains a testament to Nolan's directorial prowess and his ability to convey the enormity of space. The emotional journey of Cooper and his daughter Murph played with earnestness, grounds the film's grandiose ambitions. Scenes of genuine heartbreak, like Cooper grappling with the relativity of time as he watches years of messages from his children, showcase the film's capacity to resonate on a deeply human level.
"Interstellar" may stumble in its execution of certain themes, particularly the portrayal of love as a force comparable to gravity, and encounters with scientific implausibilities that may distract the discerning viewer. Yet, its visual spectacle, coupled with a narrative boldness to explore the unknown, cements it as a noteworthy, if not universally acclaimed, entry in Nolan's filmography. It's a movie that, despite its flaws, invites viewers into a conversation about our place in the universe and the lengths to which humanity will go to survive, making it a polarizing yet unmissable cinematic experience.
well...
Well...
WELL...
I don't know what to say. This movie truly left me speechless. I didn't think any film would have the ability to surprise me to this degree anymore, but this one did. This was, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the best two hours and forty-two minutes of my life.
Christopher Nolan has already given us successful formulas that inspire the viewer to analyze his film down to the smallest detail, so I was going into this film with high expectations. It did not disappoint, quite the contrary.
Every performance was practiced and every detail was studied down to the tiniest detail. It is to be commended how good this cast was, and how good the cast was, during the film. Since "The Lincoln Lawyer" I have loved any performance by Matthew McConaughey, this one simply surpassed them all. I was able to overcome my phobia of Anne Hathaway's mouth (see my review of Roald Dahl's The Witches to understand) and added another film to the long list of excellent films Michael Caine has been in. The all-star cast did not disappoint.
Hans. Zimmer... One of the best soundtracks ever. That's all I have to say.
Everything about the plot was thought out in the smallest detail, from the evolution, to the twists and turns, to the pacing.
Inception has always been my favorite film, both Nolan's and ever. However, I believe this one may have surpassed it in Inception... In these two aspects
Lastly, I would like to praise Interstellar for achieving what no Star Wars movie has ever achieved which is: THE EXPLOSIONS IN SPACE HAVE NO SOUND, FOR GOD'S Sakes. As my FQ teacher used to say: Star Wars is extremely unrealistic, because in space sound does not propagate, so you shouldn't hear the explosions. So, kudos to Interstellar for not having sound when Dr. Mann's (Matt Damon) ship explodes.
P.S.
Star Wars is still awesome, even if you don't pay attention to those nerdy details
"Do not go gentle into that good night; Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light".
The story is about a team of explorers undertakes the most important mission in human history; traveling beyond this galaxy to discover whether mankind has a future among the stars.
Christopher Nolan once said that 2001: A Space Odyssey was his all time favorite film and how he wanted to do a small tribute to he's next film. And then comes a movie called "Interstellar" that will put a smile on Kubrick face if he was alive today, because Interstellar is one of the best movie of 2014 and the best movie experience I've had at the cinema.
I saw this movie in IMAX and all through out this film I felt like I was in space floating around with Mconaughey and Anne Hathaway. I had that feeling that I was going deep into space just like are main character's, going deep into space just like the viewing auditions and me.
The visual effect's in this movie are some of the most stunning, beautiful and Jaw dropping effect's I've seen since 2001: A Space Odyssey. The performances were brilliant, The cinematography was breathtaking and hard to look away. The directing by Christopher Nolan and let me get this out there, this man is a true director; he knows cinema and knows how to interested people into seeing he's films and I'm still shocked that he hasn't won an Oscar yet.
Now most people or critics have said that last third of this movie ruined the movie for them, but I actually like the ending to the movie. It's new for Nolan because he always ends on a deep and cold note, but this movie didn't and I didn't mind it.
My only nick pick with the movie is some of the character's in this movie wasn't all that interesting. Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain are the only character's that to me were interesting and I cared for them, but the rest of the character's I didn't really care for.
Overall Interstellar is a mind-blowing movie with fantastic visual's, interesting story line and the movie will keep you interested till the end.
First of all, what a great movie! Great acting, interesting screenplay, great graphics, lots of hardcore science done "right", great emotions.
Plot: (minor spoilers)
Earth is dying. Humans are trying to survive, but crops fail them and they face extinction. Their only chance of survival is finding new planet that is habitable. This is possible due to warmhole located near Saturn. Scouts have been sent in past to explore several options, but due to communication fault one more mission needs to be sent to confirm the right planet.
Story: (medium spoilers)
Copper (Matthew McConaughey; story protagonist) is a father, ex NASA pilot, living with his family as farmers, trying to survive by producing last grow-able food corn. He cares deeply for his children, but upon discovering NASA hidden station he faces decision to go to space, to find/confirm new planet human race could live on.
What the protagonist wants in the movie from the start is to get back. This is for me interesting screenplay. Cooper decision to go to space was almost given to him. He know that was what he needed to do, what he was born and trained to do. Saving human race for me is the background of the story. He promises to his daughter (Murphy) that he will return to see her.
She is his relationship character. She wants him to stay with them, not to go. Something that the protagonists fails to see in fullest, he know he wants it, but puts it aside for greater good, the mission. This part is important for the emotional side of story and is very strong!
As for antagonist: this is the universe, and the physical laws. Mainly time relativity. The movie nicely depicts the realities of any possible space travel and its implication to our exposure to time. This is the main obstacle to the antagonist to reconcile with his goal, to go back, to see his daughter, because she would die of old age before he would return back. So he is racing against the time, will he make it?
My summary and opinion:
Really great movie mainly due to screenplay that is well executed by actors and cinematics. Main strength i see in the "hidden" true story, that coincides with the fore-front story of saving human race. The resolution of the movie is well timed to coincide in three elements getting reconciled (The antagonist goal, the saving of human race, and emotional reconciliation with the relationship character (daughter) )
Well done!
That this movie, at the time of writing this, holds an 8.8 rating at IMDb is simply beyond my understanding. Needless to say I did not really like this movie. The story is not very good, the science is ludicrous and the visuals not all that impressive. Maybe the latter would be better in a big theater (I watched this on my home cinema system which has a relatively large screen by European standards) but I am not really sure about that either.
Be warned that the rest of this review might contain a spoiler or two.
The movie starts of with the usual “I told you so” wet dream of the green fanatics on a dying Earth so it is off to a depressing start right away. That is an overused concept today as far as I am concerned. Then they pour it on with a school official claiming that he Apollo missions and moon landings never happened. What the f…? If they wanted to depress the audience right from the start they succeeded, at least with this audience.
The story proceeds with our heroes finding these gravity waves in the sand and by a huge stretch of imagination decrypts them to mean coordinates which leads them to the secret NASA base. Once there Cooper is told that he is their best choice of pilot for a “save the human race” mission through a wormhole. Yeah, right! This guy was former NASA. His whereabouts could hardly been unknown to them. If he was their best choice why would they entrust a mission to save the human race to someone else until he stumbled onto their door? Typical Hollywood nonsense!
The movie is full of this kind of rubbish. Romilly wastes 23 years of his life doing pretty much nothing except deciding not to go into the sleep capsule. The supposedly highly trained and vetted professor that they do find turns out to be a psychopath as well as and idiot almost blowing up the ship when trying to proceed with a docking that all the systems tells him have not succeeded. Then they proceed to dock with the main ship and stop its spin as well as bring it out of orbit around a planet with the shuttles engines. That is one hell of a powerful shuttle not to mention the strength of the docking mechanism! This just goes on. When someone is not doing something illogical or stupid (or both) they sit around talking, philosophizing and dragging the movie forward at snails pace. 169 minutes is way too much for this movie.
The movie ends up in one big time travel mess (okay they do not travel in time, just sends messages through time but still…) during a bunch of psychedelic scenes while traveling through the back hole. Science? Not so much. And what about this totally ludicrous massively illogical and inefficient robot design?
The one good thing I can say about this movie is that the performance of most of the actors, especially Matthew McConaughey, are quite good. For the rest, not my cup of tea.
This movie is OK at best. It's one of Nolan's better ones at least. But, it has some serious issues. See Krauss talk about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pG89gREWyI&t=1m12s
It's too long - he's right. The oxygen blight is completely scientifically silly. The entire basis of the plot (that Earth will run out of oxygen in tens of years) is unbelievable. This put me off from the start. There's some "formula" that Michael Caine worked on and half-solved, but it took data from the event horizon of a black hole (which also makes no sense scientifically) to solve it. Sorry, if you approach a black hole, you don't end up behind a bookshelf in your old house in the past - I have no idea how they can claim this is a movie about science. It is FULL of religious symbolism, though, so if you're into that, you'll be right at home. Apparently humans evolve out of the 3rd dimension too ... sure. There's one thing that was definitely right - outer space is quiet - FINALLY.
The cinematography is pretty good, and I liked how the dude went crazy on the barren planet, but this film would have been a lot better without the sappy happy ending. I mean, really - transporting all the way back from inside a black hole? Armageddon had a much more realistic ending than that, and it was SO STUPID! It would be great if someone fan-edited this into something scientifically accurate (dub over the lines about what's wrong with Earth replacing it with a feasible problem, have him crushed to death in the black hole, show Brand on the planet at the end all alone, FIN). I don't know how people can give this a higher rating than a 7/10. I wouldn't consider it to be a classic at all. It's at best a see-once blockbuster, just like Armageddon was.
The Earth is dying, and technology a luxury. People live as farmers for the most part to produce food for mankind.
In these times, the protagonist, a former NASA pilot, gets by accident into a progressive NASA program with the goal of finding a replacement planet for humankind.
Pretty slight spoilers (not much more than you likely know about the movie beforehand anyways):
A wormhole was discovered in the solar system, which alien forces have laid off and sending signals to the Earth. In the search of a new home for humanity, the team passes through and is going to investigate planets which scouts did discover before.
In-depth spoilers, better read only post-watching:
The first planet to find was pretty weird, I think. Because landing on there makes the time ratio 1:7, but this doesn't seem to count for the ship in the orbit of it? When you are so close to a nuclear star, it seems pretty unbelievable for me that that tiny distance difference would bear such huge consequences. Additionally, it looks like for each hour on the planet not only 7 years pass on Earth, but also for the ship in the orbit - Which doesn't make sense, especially considering it is near a nuclear star. This is more of a scientific note, it does not make watching the movie worse in any term.
I also failed to understand how the robot did fall through to Earth and how that did happen as well as him being "picked up by scouts", where even?
The ending is pretty creative, in any case, independent on how you think about it personally.
I think one among the best movies I have ever watched.
Rating: 10/10
I fell into my own trap with this one. I always say don´t led a trailer fool you, don´t build up expactations ´cause in the end you might be dissapointed. In a way that´s what happened with Interstellar. It was absolutely not what I thought it to be which in the end left me kind of confused and wondering what to make of it.
I see a lot of resemblence to "2001" in the whole make up of the movie but like "2001" I´m not blown away. Interstellar is a good movie with a good and interesting storyline that has it´s flaws if you look at it from certain angles. That´s the movies, Personally, I think the end was to much Hollywood in it´s conclusion. I think Nolan once said he placed emotion above science for the end and that´s my biggest problem - the typical happy-end. It´s especially tragic since so much effort went into making this scientifically sound. Having Kip Thorne as a consultant is a big asset and it showed in the movie until that point. Than Hollywood won over Science.
The movie could have been 20-30 min shorter which might have helped the pace. The visuals are really good, it all felt believable (that is beside the fact that the whole idea itself provides that you buy into it).
It was not a complete bust or waste of time - but I don´t think this is a movie I will watch repeatedly.
I saw this film at the cinema on release - stuck in traffic that was worsening, I took the sideroads and went the cinema to pass the time more usefully... I liked it then, didn't love it.
I still don't love it but I've watched it again since then. Once more when it came out on Bluray and just now, some 6 years after release.
The bits that annoyed me then only grate on me now.
They are:
- the dialogue volume is atrocious. McConaughey mumbles and growls for the whole film but it's across the board. Just raise the damn volume of the dialogue...
- The soundtrack isn't to my taste. Too emotionless a pallette for my tastes.
- though it seems like you need a degree in physics to watch this, you don't. The scriptwriters are just using the concept of more physically-manipulable dimensions to write their way out of a hole.
Personal irritations:
- The meet-up with the daughter irritates me. He's been away for 90 years or so, I believe. And they spend less than an hour meeting before he takes off again...
- Anne Hathaway. I get a feeling of insincerity off her and don't rate her as an actor. When you see her being interviewed, you see how faux she is in normal life and it is exactly visible on screen. However, what she takes from the screen, Jessica Chastain returns with interest! She does fantastically with a role that she shares with other actors.
I think it's an excellent movie. It just isn't perfect. But it is far better than say Gravity and less enjoyable as a film as The Martian. It is a more serious affair yet it relies on cheap thrills so it cannot really consider itself a superior effort.
8.25/10
What kind of argument is that? "We love people who have died. What's the social utility in that? - None." Why would that mean it means "something more"? It could just mean that the emotional system we call love, as it has developed through evolution, cannot exist without persisting after the person it binds us to has died? Or perhaps it actually needs to persist after others' deaths because one aspect of it is to ensure the survival of groups and not just individuals and hence, if we stopped loving people as soon as they died, there would be no reason to ensure their survival? Also "Love is the one thing we are capable of perceiving that transcends time and space." I'm sorry, but that's absolute nonsense. We 'perceive' love because it is an emotion. In other words: it is INTERNAL. That we love people who are far away or long gone doesn't mean it 'transcends' time and space in a physical way any more than a photograph of Neil Armstrong on the moon does.
Also, why does one planet orbiting the black hole have massive time dilation and the other doesn't? And while we're at it, why would anyone even consider settling a planet orbiting a black hole? That seems like a terrible idea for many reasons. Though, on the other hand, if you use that planet as a starting point to look for others to colonise, the time dilation might actually be beneficial - after all, imagine if it had been the other way around and in the, what, 4 years the Endurance was gone only 40 minutes had passed on earth? Still, no one really mentions any of this so it feels lazy.
And then there's the ending with the bookshelves. All absolute physical ridiculousness aside, it was obvious it was him all along, and he thus had to signal "STAY", but how the hell did he not remember that was exactly what his daugher told him the message said? And then, you know, why did he have to use the watch for anything? (And why did it keep repeating the message, but that's another question). If he had access to any moment in that bedroom, why didn't he just go to the one where Murph came back there and threw down books again or something? And hell, if THEY (us) have control over time and space, why did they have to transmit the information in such a convoluted way at all? Why not drop in at the earliest possible moment in human history, give them the information, and done?
All in all, this movie is very much like The Prestige in that it contains some very interesting ideas, stunning visuals, and satisfying twists, but it's also extremely aggravating in that it pretends to be realistic (especially in the way it is shot, all the death and misfortune that occurs, and of course all the technobabble) and seems to wrap up nicely, and yet if you spend more than a second thinking about it nothing much in it makes sense. I think I would have found it actually more satisfying if in the end, everyone died (except maybe for Dr. Brand).
What a cracker!
So glad to finally tick 'Interstellar' off my theoretical list, took me far too long to get around to it but boy am I glad I finally have done - sensational film! The most obvious sign of that being the case is how the ~2hr30min run time goes by in an absolute flash... insert joke about it like being aboard Endurance here
I'm obviously not able to add anything new to what many, many others have already said gushingly about this 2014 flick, so I can only say I'm sure I agree with the vast majority of whatever praise this has received. As one would expect from Christopher Nolan & Co., it's incredibly well made, sounds amazing and looks out-of-this-world (ha!) stunning.
Matthew McConaughey puts in an incredible performance as lead, most notably nailing all of the emotion-filled scenes - not that I care about these things personally, but I'm shocked to see the lack of high accolades that came his way from this... he merited more! Aside from him, there are very good showings from the likes of Jessica Chastain, Mackenzie Foy and Anne Hathaway.
I will note one 'but', mind. I didn't love the bits at the end involving the dimensional tesseract, don't get me wrong at all it's still superb viewing... just a noticeable drop from all that preceeds it, which honestly simply says more about how outstanding everything else prior is really. I thought similarly about (the equally magnificent) 'Everything Everywhere All at Once', for example. In short: just a nit-pick, tbh.
All in all, phenomenal!
I'm struggling to put my thoughts together on this one. Overall, like Dunkirk, it was a disappointment. Whilst unlike that movie, it doesn't meander around for 2 hours, this time the first half of the movie is a wonderful, science-y movie with hard decisions about Earth becoming infertile. Somewhere along the way it loses a bit of focus and turns into a more cliche'd movie. McConaughey is outstanding in the role, as he was in general in this time period. The rest of the cast does their parts well. But something about it suddenly changing from slow silent space shots of giant white machines, drawing back to the original Alien movie, and then turning into tense action scene after tense action scene, while not bad, it was also not the movie that I had been enjoying up to that point. The final third in the end when the movie turns into their version of 5D with the paradoxical time loop of "we sent for ourselves" was a bit more interesting but then it led into a neat ending with a bow where he makes it back to his daughter, the driving thread of the movie, but is ok leaving her again, for good, after a 5 minute meeting with her.
You know, maybe it IS like Dunkirk in more ways than one. Beautifully shot, amazing Hans Zimmer soundtrack, and the movie itself has a major identity crisis. That's true for both films. Interstellar only being lightly better in my opinion because of the stellar first half.
7.5 rounded up
It's hard to figure out what genre this movie actually is. At first glance, Interstellar looks like a space epic: a quest of galactic discovery and exploration. On the other hand, which you might have realized after less than an hour, it also feels like a family drama. Interstellar might be both though, which seems to explain why it has difficulties on building up the make believe the venture to space exploration.
Crop failures, disasters, and pestilence were the reasons why humans in Interstellar opted to do space travel. We can see this through the the situation presented in Joseph Cooper's (Matt McCounaghy) family. However, rather than setting up the build up for a necessity on space exploration - mankind's desperate attempt to save humanity by traveling to unknown regions - we get lots of family drama instead. Which, if done artfully, should be good.
But it didn't.
The transition between Cooper's family drama to the quest of space venture went a bit abrupt and janky - which seems to continue on even after Cooper jumped to other galaxy. In space, we get another drama between characters in the team. However, rather than making the dangerous space mission feels like a mission where a group of humans go at all cost to save mankind, it feels like amateur hobbyists delving to deep to the unknown.
First, most of the crews never experienced actually space flight, save for Cooper - which is why he was selected to go there. This is justified in the movie as resources have been scarce for several years, which actually would make this space quest even more desperate and urgent, but the movie fails to portray that urgency.
Which brings us to second point: characters behave stupidly for reasons very incomprehensible considering what's at stake. One stupidity: a character died because the person just stands there doing nothing while impact is incoming. Another: when the crew decides which planet should be more potential to explore, they seem to forget what's they're risking and opting to think with emotional instinct. Someone thinks a planet is better because their loved one went there. Another thinks abandoning mission is more critical than guaranteeing humanity survival. This can be actually be done artfully if we can see the emotional dilemma, the depth of character's thought - but nope. One person even childishly shut themselves in after the debate, what a professional.
Between the tedious crew drama and back-and-forth Cooper's family drama on Earth, we sometimes still get the epic space exploration feel. Brilliant planets, beautiful unknown landscapes, the quest of going into something unknown, and discovering unexpected surprises. We get to scenes portraying the risk of space travel and difficult decisions they must make on solving that. There are beautiful moments, accompanied by Hans Zimmer's titular composition - a few touching moment between characters and just the feeling of unknown curiosity that brings that marvels the galactic wonder. The ending - albeit feels a bit rushed for the built up when Cooper's daughter realized the truth - is especially excellent, serving as a closure after the journey the characters went.
But it is mixed up with shallow character's writing, awkward plot decisions, and sometimes the too-much-is-going-on directing/cutting (especially the back and forth scenes), so that Interstellar leaves me with a familiar yet uncomfortable feeling.
As with the majority of science-fiction films, the desolace of space is often only a mask for the very down to earth, human issues that constitute its core themes. Interstellar does not break this tradition in the slightest, as it seems to be an epic 3-hour long salute to the human will.
The running time and sheer scale that Nolan has strived for has made comparisons to 2001: A Space Odyssey inevitable (Nolan himself has cited it as an obvious and strong influence), but Interstellar lacks its existential and technological concerns in favour of melodrama and sentimentality. It takes a director like Nolan to concieve the unique visuals that appear throughout the film, such as the wormhole or tesseract, but his flare for spectacle often hides superficial characters with motiviations contrived to only advance the narrative. Similarly contrived is the ‘villain’ that Matt Damon portrays, whose sole reason for existence seems only to appease the type of audience who cannot fathom a film without an antagonist. Interstellar’s main problem is that it is an unconventional film produced with the goal of profiting millions from moviegoers.
As only a viewer, it’s difficult to tell just how much of a fault that is on the part of Nolan, whose initial work may have been distorted to create a more digestible final product (perhaps catalyzed by the success of Gravity). This is nowhere more present than in the deafening soundtrack, which was often so intrusive and fixated on eliciting a singular emotional reaction that it obscured the dialogue and removed me from the experience of the film.
Yet there is an earnestness behind everything in the film, that sometimes finds its way through and reminds you of just how far above the usual tedium of Hollywood sci-fi cinema it is.
There is so much to like here and with Nolan's previous track record, the incredibly high expectations for this film would have been hard to meet. The visuals are outstanding and this deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible. Like its obvious influence, 2001, Nolan has captured the vastness and beauty of space as well as the danger and isolation of working in this environment. The sequences on each of the planets are equally awe inspiring, building to a tense resolution each time. The final act is sure to divide opinion, though Nolan does drop hints in the first part of the film and it does fit within the core humanist themes that the film is driven by. McConnaughey and Hathaway are great as the two central astronauts in the film. Having said that, it is not perfect. Perhaps, in a sense, Nolan has overreached. Not since Spielberg's A.I, has there been a film with an identity crisis quite like this - is it an emotional involving character-driven story that hinges on the father/daughter relationship ? Or is it the more plot-driven story that captures the fascination of space exploration and the human drive for scientific discovery and evolution ? It seems that Nolan wants to have both and whilst there are moments and sequences within the film that fulfil this grand ambition, equally the film as a whole neither fully satisfies either element. But with sequels and franchises dominating the film year, here we have a film with ideas and themes that are sure to provoke some discussion and for that it deserves a lot of credit.
Review by Serggyo AlejandroBlockedParentSpoilers2014-12-27T17:32:52Z— updated 2022-10-21T17:11:28Z
Everyone keeps suggesting there is a paradox concerning the 5D future humans and their ability to save humanity in the past. It's really not a paradox at all. Everyone assumes humanity survived to ascend to the 5th dimension but how could humanity exist in the future if not for the actions of Cooper.. who was guided by future humans (begin endless loop).
Did anyone ever consider the other important character in the movie? Amelia Brand carried on with the rest of her mission (thanks to Cooper). I postulate that Brand used the human seeds as intended and set up a colony. A colony that would thrive and eventually evolve beyond human. Thus Earth is of little importance, and may have indeed died. These colonists, and the generations that followed, would have been told the story of a great man (Cooper) who saved them from extinction. With the ability to manipulate space-time, they would pay homage to their hero "God" by helping him in the past so he may fulfill the mission most important to him, to once again see his daughter. Plan B worked beautifully. But the 5d humans, having the power to bend space-time, decided there's no reason why Plan A had to fail.