http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/interstellar-has-gorgeous-posters-ever-734367
Melanie and I saw “Interstellar” last night. Way back when it was first coming out I was interested because it’s a Christopher Nolan film (director) and written by him and his brother Jonathan Nolan. I’m a big fan of Nolan’s, starting with 2000’s “Memento” which he also co-wrote with his brother. Nolan also directed the three most recent Batman movies and cowrote two of those with his brother as well.
I obviously took my time seeing “Interstellar.” The initial attention it got when it opened in November seemed to fade quickly as other newer movies got buzz. “Interstellar” got moved to my must-see-but-maybe-not-just-yet list. By the time we saw it last night, I’d completely forgotten it was a Christopher Nolan movie!
I didn’t read much beforehand so didn’t know much about the storyline going into it. That’s how I like seeing a movie, without too much information or pre-conceived ideas. It wasn’t until the movie was over I realized it was Christopher Nolan’s; I don’t think there are any titles in the beginning so most or all of the credits are held to the end.
The story concerns a future earth heading toward catastrophe because of an out-of-control blight which is ruining crops and turning the planet into a dustbowl. McConaughey plays Cooper, the single father of a young teenage son Tom and a pre-teen daughter Murphy. Cooper’s a farmer now, but before that he was an engineer and a pilot (the future earth needs farmers more than engineers).
Murphy notices strange things happening in an upstairs room. In ways I won’t give away, these events lead them to the super-secret remnants of NASA. The man in charge is Professor John Brand played by Michael Cain. He tells Cooper about a worm hole discovered near Saturn that seems to lead to a galaxy where there are other inhabitable planets within reach. But they need good pilots and, knowing of Cooper’s background (was Cooper also a part of NASA? I wasn’t clear on that), they recruit him on the spot. Cooper agrees, and the next day(?) he blasts off. That’s one of the problems I have with the movie. They didn’t know Cooper would find them, but now that he has, they immediately send him off into space without any training.
What?
Oh but wait, right, this is a movie.
Cooper is part of a crew of four which includes Anne Hathaway as Amelia Brand, professor Brand’s daughter. With them are two robot slabs named TARS (voiced by Bill Irwin) and CASE (voiced by Josh Stewart). The robots have movable panels allowing them to walk and, when necessary, cartwheel. Their ship meets up with an orbiting station - a kind of deep-space mobile home - which they ride to Saturn.
They crew has two potential missions. Plan A is to find an inhabitable planet the earth’s population can migrate to. The hitch is no one knows how to get everyone there yet. Back at NASA, professor Brand promises to have that part worked out before an inhabitable planet is found. Plan B – it wasn’t quite clear to me when Plan B might need to be implemented - is to seed a planet with human DNA. When? If an inhabitable planet can’t be found? Or if an inhabitable planet is found but the earth’s population can’t get there? At any rate, a method has been developed to allow babies to hatch and grow up without adult parents. These seem to be time-released babies and new ones will be hatched periodically. By the time the first babies become young adults, they’ll engage in behavior that will no doubt result in more babies. (I assume condoms and birth control pills are not included with whatever provisions they’d be supplied with.)
The limitless and epic beauty of outer space is visually dramatic here, very well done. There’s time dilation and black holes and relativity and a fifth dimension (this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius). There are tidal waves and ice clouds (Holy Hoth, Batman!) and dust storms. There’s a lot of movie in this movie.
I like “Interstellar,” it’s very good, impressive, but it’s also a little disappointing. It doesn’t achieve the greatness it strives for. In some places a lot of attention seems to be paid to getting the science right, but in others places the laws of physics are completely ignored and replaced by pure fantasy because that works better for the plot. That’s OK I guess, it is a movie, but it’s a strange mixture.
Other elements of the story don’t add up. We learn Professor Brand isn’t all he presents himself to be, but the reveal doesn’t tell us why he behaved as he initially did. There’s a nice bookend scene near the end mirroring an earlier scene where Murphy discovers the mysterious things happening in an upstairs room, but when we learn what causes these things, it doesn’t make sense why they’re done. This may sound vague, but I can’t say too much without spoilers. Suffice to say in addition to the worm holes and the black holes, there are plot holes.
I don’t care much for Matthew McConaughey’s performance here. He has an affected understated droll, flat and monosyllabic, which makes him come off as an actor who’s a bit full of himself. I saw the acting instead of the character. McConaughey is on a hot streak after doing “Dallas Buyers Club,” and it seems to me he’s a little cocky in this performance. Not bad, just not as committed as he can be. Maybe it was the part, but I think it’s up to an actor to create dimension in a character if it’s not on the page. A good actor finds things in between the lines, motivations and intentions of his own to inform the person he or she is playing. I didn’t see much of that here. Yes, maybe the director told him not to do these things, but I can’t imagine Nolan telling McConaughey to flatten out his delivery. Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain are very good, as is Michael Cain in the kind of smaller but memorable part he specializes in now.
I like what the movie strives for. This is an epic film and you get a lot in it. It’s going for big things, big ideas, and balances that effectively with human intimacy and emotion. That’s nice to see. It has the cosmic and the personal and examines the unknowable vastness of the universe and of love, and it mostly does a good job with both.
The cinematography and special effects are great too. A lot of the effects are “real” as opposed to CGI; solid props are used and real projections are seen through the windows of the spaceships. That gives the movie a more organic, believable feel. What CGI there is integrates well with the rest of the movie and doesn’t stand out or detract.
Sometimes the movie stretches a bit - the scene in the fifth dimension is visually stunning, but it made me wince – but mostly it delivers what you want from a big movie. Nolan’s movies are sometimes big on idea and not fully successful on execution; this is a big example of that. But though I had hoped for more, I did like it. It could be shorter for sure, but I guess that would make it less of an epic. Or would it? Doesn’t any work improve through tightening and careful editing? Would that rob this movie of its epic-ness? Maybe not. I think you could shorten this by 30 minutes or more and have a better film.
One side complaint. We saw this at the AMC Loews Kips Bay 15 theater at 2nd and 32nd, in theater five I think. It was a smallish room and we were in the second to last row. We looked slightly down on the screen and during the commercials it looked a little dim and soft, kind of standard def instead of hi def. I figured that was because the ads were in lower resolution, but the coming attractions were the same and so was the feature. Disappointing, especially with a movie as visual as this one. The projection should have been better.
Another side complaint. What the fuck with seeing a movie in public anymore? Just as the movie started a young couple walked in and sat down in front of us a bit to the left. The woman had a cell phone with a bright screen and continued scrolling through it while the movie played. In a deep loud voice - I love having a stage voice in my actor bag - I said calmly but loud enough for the whole theater to hear, “Could you turn off your phone please?” My thinking is, if you say something loud in a crowd of strangers, the person you’re talking to will realize you’re not afraid to make a scene and will react with politeness instead of belligerence. Plus, I was behind her and she couldn’t see me, so that must have been at least a LITTLE intimidating. She paused for the briefest of moments, then put her phone away and kept it off for the rest of the movie. The other advantage of letting everyone else hear you is, they’ll hopefully think twice before using their own phones. One day for sure this is going to backfire on me; I promise to post what happens when it does.
I give this whole movie-going experience a 1.5 out of four stars. I’d give the movie three out of four stars, but because so much effort was put into it, and because it strives for more than most movies do – and because many of it worked very well – I’ll give it 3.5 out of four stars. And half a black hole.
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