Heavy is the weight of expectation on everything Christopher Nolan does at this point. Eight incredibly successful, thought-provoking films, including three of the greatest superhero movies ever and one of the best pieces of sci-fi in Inception, will cause most to believe Nolan will always perform on that high level. And that has certainly been the case with his ninth film, Interstellar, which has been shrouded in secrecy; promising high-concept science of the quantum physics variety, the kind us laymen get cloudy-eyed over. There's no denying Nolan's sheer ambition and glorious intellectual curiosity, it's in Interstellar's DNA, but what good is that adventurous spirit if Nolan doesn't trust the audience enough to see it through to the end?
At the head of a glowing cast is Matthew McConaughey as Cooper, a former NASA pilot now forced to become a farmer due to the severe lack of food. The near-future has seen the planet infected with an intentionally vague "blight" that has wiped out most of the crops and left the world covered in a thick dust. There's no place for men like Coop anymore; space flights have not only been ceased due to the costs (hey, that sounds familiar) but are also the subject of conspiracy theories used to paint space exploration in a negative light. Coop's daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy, played later by Jessica Chastain) takes after her old man, while his son wants to plow the fields and be useful. But it's becoming obvious that Earth doesn't have long left, and that all the farming in the world won't save it.
Fortunately, there's a glimmer of hope that emerges in Murph's room of all places, in the form of a "ghost" that knocks things off the wall and causes the dust to fall in what looks like binary code patterns. Using their wits, Murph and Coop follow the code's coordinates to a secret locale where they uncover his old mentor, Professor Brand (Michael Caine), who is leading a team of astronauts whose sole mission is to find humanity a new home planet. We've been aided in our journey by a mysterious wormhole that emerged out of nowhere, with the decidedly un-scientific theory that all-powerful beings left it there for us to find. These beings that are strong enough to leave wormholes lying around but not to just drop by and say "Hey, you could move humanity to this planet over here. We've decorated it nicely for ya." Others have gone ahead, scouting multiple new worlds but never returning, sending out beacons to the most promising prospects. It's then that Coop makes the gut-wrenching decision to leave his family behind and join in the next mission into deep space along with Brand's stiff and impersonal daughter Amelia (Anne Hathaway) and a pair of others. There's even a jokey little robot (voiced by Bill Irwin) tagging along for a dose of humor, although its presence doesn't quite work with the film's serious tone.
While often considered too precise, too clinical of a filmmaker, the genuine heart and wonder he injects into Interstellar is considerable. Especially during the first half of the film, during the earthbound portions as Coop searches for meaning in a world that no longer seems to need him. At the same time he must help his children find their own reason for existence and to nurture whatever that cause may be. In a way, he's carrying over themes of paternal legacy explored in all three of his Batman movies.
It's as Nolan and screenwriter brother Jonathan delve into the technical aspects that things begin to unravel. There are some huge ideas here, with Nolan again interested in the flexibility of time, much like with Inception. Only now one must factor in space and relativity, and the result are a bit jumbled. Certainly, the average moviegoer isn't going to understand a word of the technical gobbledygook, but that shouldn't really matter if the story is engrossing enough. And for a vast chunk of time it most definitely is. Shot mostly in 70mm IMAX, every single frame is an absolute stunner and demands to be seen in the larger format. Whether we're floating through the dark, silent void of space or hurtling impossibly through a black hole, the beauty Nolan is able to craft is impressive, right up there with what we saw in Gravity just last year. If only the same precision could be found in Hans Zimmer's overbearing score, which of course is meant to be epic but sounds like someone dropped a boulder on a giant organ and left it. The herky-jerky final act offers up a series of miscues as the film begins to resemble Event Horizonmore than 2001: A Space Odyssey. While it brings with it certain manufactured thrills that some audiences will love, it comes at the expense of what had been the film's calling card up to that point: science. Even more confusing is Nolan's decision to ditch the cerebral and rely more on the emotional; to show that love is a powerful enough force to overcome time and space. Nolan's point is clear, and maybe in a different film that message would resonate deeper, but in the deeply analytical and flawed Interstellar it's just lost in space. Rating: 3 out of 5
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