Journey to the Center of Your Mind or my review of "Interstellar" *****

The term “mind blowing” is way over used in film reviewers repartee as evidenced in many a quote that are splashed across the commercials for films but the term is an understatement for Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. It will be hard to talk about the film and keep in the genre of ‘containing no spoilers’. I don’t remember which film it was but I remember the great Roger Ebert once gave two reviews for one film or at least a separate write-up in which he could discuss all the intricacies of the film with those that had already seen it.  In fact there are some elements of the film like in Donny Darko, or Vanilla Sky just talking about what genre the movie could fall in, is a spoiler in itself.

So without going into too many specifics let’s just say Interstellar touches on elements in some of the best science fiction elements while still being totally original. Unlike say, Tom Cruise’s Oblivion which shamelessly stole from many science fiction films and offered absolutely nothing new. 

Nolan’s vision has touches of say 2001: A Space Odyssey, or his own Inception, but still manages to

Interstellar travel in the Endurance

create something uniquely original. The film has just the right balance of having the movie literally grounded on earth, an earth gripped by blight and famine, with that of the outer reaches of the universe.
Like 2001…, the bulk of the movie has a main mission that takes the humanity on a journey to the stars for potential contact with beings from other galaxies or dimensions, but throws in drama that interferes with the goal. Only this movie ramps up that action many, many times. For instance there’s the waltz music accompany a docking scene from 2001… that is beautiful and esoteric like most of the film, whereas there’s a docking scene in Interstellar that is one of the most intense dramatic action filled sequences in film history.

A planet near a black hole

Speaking of the excellent action scenes, there’s another scene that reminded me of  Inception.  There’s an action sequence in Inception where the action and is building larger and larger with the tension stacking on top of itself while trying the grasp the drill-down plateaus of several realities of dreams with-in dreams and relative timelines, and Interstellar has a similar overlapping action sequence where the drama is building with nail-biting intensity while at the same time your mind is grappling with the idea of quantum physics. Now some people might be put off by having to think that much about a movie. There’s the Michael Bay's of the world raking in the mega-bucks appealing to the lowest common denominator of audiences, relying on the least amount of thought possible, delivering yet another mindless explosion. But Nolan’s genius is delivering just as much tension and action as a Michael Bay film yet filled wall to wall with thought provoking ideas.

So if you’ve already seen the film I would love to love to talk in depth about all the spoiler alert stuff that this film does have going for it, but as an objective review just know this movie starts out with the best of a slow burn plot, a mystery much like Close Encounters of The Third Kind that then rolls into one Inception and 2001… classic science fiction while yet delivering action that is a fun roller coaster ride.

Mackenzie Foy (Murph 10 years old) and Matthew McConaughey

The cast is pitch perfect, even matching child actors with their older selves which of course is a necessity when talking about Einstein’s relative nature of black hole space travel and such. Matthew McConaughey is a good center anchor delivering some great lines of subdued humor to help humanize this technological film.  And while 2001’s sterile bland human portrayal I think purposely made HAL the most “human” of characters, Nolan balances the true vastness of the universe with

Timothée Chalamet (Tom 15 Years old) and John Lithgow

touchingly human scenes plus has the computer/robots being real assets and companions in space travel. Plus the theme of “love trumps all” is something that should tug at anyone’s heartstrings without the cliché of strumming a false note.

(Murph and Tom as adults) Jessica Chastain and Casey Affleck

One final observation in conclusion is that even the music was totally original. Many people point out how Stanley Kubrick’s use of classical music was ground breaking compared to most science fiction movies of the time trying to have futuristic sounds of strange worlds etc. But Nolan working with Hans Zimmer keeps it simple too, there’s some standard orchestral and stark piano filler here and there but most of the space travel and action scenes are driving pipe organ pieces that are like Bach tripping on acid, and to me really made it a unique experience that just rounded out what is near perfect movie. I know I am biased as a science fiction fan. But I would say this would rank up there in ANY genre.