INTERSTELLAR

I managed to catch Interstellar the other day. Christopher Nolen rides again with this massive scale sci-if journey story that braids cutting edge special effects, amazing performances and a supremely inventive story together to make what is sure to be one of the year's landmark films. The movie stars Matthew McConaughey as Cooper, a NASA astronaut forced to become a farmer in a world where earth's natural resources have dwindled down to nearly nil. As Cooper struggles to raise his children during what seems to be humanity's final throws, a team of scientists, headed by Nolen favorites Michael Caine, Anne Hathaway and David Gyasi, put together a daring plan to save humanity by searching for new inhabitable world's beyond our galaxy and require Cooper's skill to get them there.

I really dug the hell out of this movie. As a fan of space travel myself, I really have to say that they did a great job at capturing a lot of the real math and science theory behind space travel, relativity theory and even some of the more edgy ideas about the characteristics of black holes. It's clear that the Nolen brothers Christopher and Jonathen did their homework while writing this script. The performances are also quite good here and Jessica Chastaine, who plays Cooper's grownup daughter, is especially impressive. These things married with the IMAX scope and the bigger than life special effects make this movie an absolute joy to watch. Everything is not all aces here as the film is not without its faults. Perhaps the thing I had the most problem with was the film's third act. The movie spends a long time setting up a very real and for the most part, a scientifically sound universe that is on par with 2001: A Space Odyssey and even to some degree it makes fun of a tropish, nonsensical and dumb way that the story could end as if to say, "we're smarter than that, c'mon, what do you take us for?" only to give in and end it that way anyway. At first I was ok with it but the more that I look at the film, the less the ending makes sense and the more the film starts to eat itself which was needless to say, really disappointing.

Overall, I still liked the movie and despite my issues with the third act, I recommend it, and if you can, spring for the IMAX because the scope and scale of the visuals are ridiculous! No television could ever do it justice. This film is for sure to be in talks to win an award of some kind for special effects in the coming months and it's well deserved. If you love liked Gravity or 2001: A Space Odyssey or Apollo 13, you are sure to like this too. Interstellar gets a 3.5...out of 5.