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Christopher Nolan is a master in the art of making visually stunning movies of huge proportions, and his newest film, Interstellar, is no exception. In this epic space tale, we follow Matthew McConaughey’s character Cooper as he searches for a new world to save the earth’s population.
I’m going to be honest, after I saw the movie, I couldn’t – and I still somewhat can’t – say if I enjoyed it or not. I have a lot of pros and a lot of cons; I felt very emotional or very stressed in some scenes and indifferent in others. For me it’s more of a neutral film, it’s not that bad, but it’s not that extraordinarily good either.
First things first, despite being 2 hours and 49 minutes long, I was hooked from beginning to end -or almost. They kinda lost me after the Black Hole. I’m not much of a science person. I think science is fantastic, but it’s just not my area. Maybe it’s one of the reasons why I thought the end was illogical. Yes it’s a Science Fiction movie – and I love Sci-Fi – and of course it doesn’t have to be logical, but in that case, it was just ridiculous and predictable. It really felt as if I was watching a film version of the opening monolog of The Twilight Zone. But, I have to admit that at times I was so involved in the survival of those characters that all the rest didn’t matter.
Throughout the movie, the characters insisted on the same points including the existence of the black hole and the fact that we don’t know what’s behind it. Also, the “They” mystery, the fifth dimension etc… Very early on in the film, Nolan is giving away many hints of the ending. Seriously, we all knew Cooper was going to enter the black hole at one point. Again, I don’t if it’s just me, or if it’s due to the fact that I watch too many shows about space or time travel, but a lot of the mystery around the plot just disappears. Nolan took a lot of elements defining the Sci-Fi genre and kind of blended everything together.
However, Interstellar is very human. The entire movie revolves around human emotions, going from the survival instinct to love, and it creates an idea of “you create your own destiny”. Yet still there are some elements that just do not make sense. For example, Dr Mann, Matt Damon’s character, is just absurd, let’s just say that. I did not quite get why he wanted to kill Cooper because they were going back with him anyway. Also, in between all the things that could kill you in space and in another planet, Cooper almost got kill by another human being. In French we would say, “l’Homme est un Loup pour l’Homme*.” Maybe it was intended, and it was here to show that there is some behavior that you just can’t explain, but it mainly got me really frustrated.
As for the rest of the cast, they are stellar *wink, wink*. With each new movie, McConaughey proves that he is a gifted actor. I used to really dislike his acting, but it was probably due to the numerous bad flicks he was in. Now I just can’t get over how good he is! Anne Hathaway delivers an amazing performance as well. What I particularly liked with this cast, and especially Hathaway’s performance, is that nothing is exaggerated. They are natural in their reactions to some situations. It’s probably one of the details that I liked the most.
Interstellar is definitely not Nolan’s best. It is visually impressive, and technically speaking, it is very well executed. There’s nothing to be said on that. The only real problem with it has to do with the plot. But all in all, you need to create your own opinion about it, it’s a movie made to make you think. It’s definitely a must-see.
Rating: 3/5
*Editor’s note: Literally “Man is a wolf to man.” Mankind’s fiercest predator is mankind itself.
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