In the previous films, Christopher and brother/regular film partner Jonathan Nolan are responsible for blending tense action with explorations of morality, philosophy and what is real and what is an illusion. In a sense, that's no different in "Interstellar." The special effects and cinematography are stunning and what you'd expect from a Nolan cinematic spectacle, like we've seen in The Dark Knight trilogy, Insomnia, Memento and Inception.
The acting, for the most part, is solid. But being a geek you can't help but wonder what could have and should have been when it comes to the science, the inevitable plot twists/holes and those aforementioned explorations into existentialism.
I'll do my best to spare you spoilers. It's the not-too-distant future where Earth's environment has gone awry. The planet is drying. Agriculture is wasting away. Many parts of the world have become a dust bowl. Animal and plant species are going extinct fast and, apparently, wars have become obsolete. So has the need to preserve the best of what humanity had accomplished in the way of exploration, especially into space, the final frontier. School textbooks have been edited, and even NASA officially has been deactivated.
Enter Cooper, played well by Matthew McConaughey, a former hot shot NASA test pilot/engineer who never got to venture into space. He's a farmer now, an among many who are trying to save the world through primarily corn crops.
With help from his own dad (John Lithgow), Cooper raises his two kids. His daughter Murphy is a spark plug of sorts. One day she complains to her dad about a "ghost" in her bedroom, an unseen force that knocks several items from her large book shelf. Eventually we learn there's not really a "ghost" in Murph's bedroom (spoiler alert) but something else...and a larger anomaly, a mysterious message that leads Cooper to a nearby secret (and rather gigantic) NASA lab.
There, Cooper's former colleague, a physicist named Dr. Brand (Michael Caine) and others have been laboring to respond to a wormhole that was discovered years ago. Inexplicably, an officially shuttered NASA has managed to dispatched manned crafts deep into space to find the wormhole and see if there's a way to a new place humanity could possibly call home.
The previous missions have turned up essentially nothing and Cooper is mankind's best last chance to pilot a successful mission. I won't go further into detail but suffice it to say, the trip - visually - is stunning. It is thrilling, adventurous and makes one wonder about the mysteries of wormholes, gravity, black holes, time relativity, dimensions and what may or may not exist on other worlds.
Moreso, there are debates about what aspects of the human condition. Admittedly this is where the script gets a bit clunky. The science isn't precise as a nerd would want from even a movie like this, in spite of the involvement of renowned astrophysicist Kip Thorne. The script leans heavily on Thorne's work and, what mankind has learned from centuries of scientific research. From there, "Interstellar" exhibits things like Einstein's curvature of space and time relativity like no movie has previously demonstrated. But like with everything else in entertainment, a few things must be shortchanged for the sake of dramatic license.
Visually and musically, the Nolans tip their hats to "2001" and a hodgepodge of previous movies (good and bad) that, like "Interstellar," strived to be profound and visionary in their examination of human existence and mankind's place in the cosmos. There are robots that appear like an homage to HAL 9000 and even the clunky ones in Disney's "The Black Hole." Hans Zimmer's score sounds like a hybrid of a Philip Glass overture and something more similar to his works in the Dark Knight films and "Inception."
The third act, while appropriately intense, has a subplot/twist that I'm unsure whether it was necessary. I did roll my eyes. Ultimately, the heart of "Interstellar" is the father/daughter relationship, a bond broken seemingly for the worse once Cooper leaves his young girl behind to save the world. That young girl, while feeling initially shattered at the thought of never again seeing her father, grows up strong and becomes key to Cooper's efforts to save humanity.
I may need a second viewing of "Interstellar." Probably a few more viewings as time goes along. Is it impressive as "2001"? No. Nothing can really top that but "Interstellar" tries its hardest to aspire a tribute, and I admire that. But those McConaughey Lincoln commercials and his role in "True Detective" are making a lot more sense now.
