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Rating: 4.25 out of 5
I am a HUGE Christopher Nolan fan. I loved the Dark Knight series and Inception. Anything he makes, I will watch. He is my second-favorite director and storyteller, behind the legend, Mr. Steven Spielberg. I remember seeing the trailer for the film when it first came out, and I didn’t think much of it because it looked like another space movie to me. After it came out and was released on DVD, I was having a conversation with my mom. Some background, my mom was a high school chemistry teacher, and during the last week of school, one of her students asked if they could watch Interstellar. During my conversation with my mom, she mentioned how good the movie was and that I should watch it. I looked up the run time and somewhat rolled my eyes because I wasn’t feeling an almost three-hour movie. My mom assured me that time moved fast while watching this film.
I went out and bought Interstellar to watch it. I have to say GAWD DAMN was this a great movie. Every time I watch it, I learn and discover something new about the film. Hell, it is currently playing on PlutoTV, and each time it comes on, I watch it. Nolan dropped another banger of a movie on the world while giving a freakin Ph.D. level course in science. I’m far from being a science wiz, but Nolan made me want to learn about black holes, time slippage, relativity, and every other thing about science that deals with this film, and he made it look so good. Hans Zimmer’s music will blow your mind.
Here is a synopsis of Nolan’s epic space adventure. It begins his epic space adventure with a series of interviews. We learn about the situation as humanity faces extinction due to a blight. Certain crops appear to die one by one as the years pass. Joseph “Coop” Cooper (McConaughey) is a widowed former NASA test pilot who becomes a farmer. Coop has two children that he is raising, Murph and Tom, along with his father-in-law, Donald. Murph is like Coop, who is extremely smart but gets in trouble at school because of her intelligence. During a dust storm, Coop and Murph discover dust patterns in Murph’s room, which she claims are the work of a ghost that communicates with geographic coordinates. Coop decides to check it out while Murph sneaks into the truck to tag along. The coordinates lead the pair to a secret NASA facility led by Professor John Brand (Caine). Brand explains that 48 years earlier, a wormhole appeared near Saturn, leading to a system in another galaxy with twelve potential habitable planets located near a black hole named Gargantua. A mission called the Lazarus project, where twelve lucky scientists’ journey through the blackhole to evaluate the planets. Cooper is enlisted to pilot the Endurance spacecraft through the wormhole, with the mission to colonize a habitable planet using 5,000 frozen embryos. Cooper accepts the mission even though Murph doesn’t want him to go. Cooper promises her that he will return. Cooper joins a crew of two robots, TARS and CASE, along with Dr. Amelia Brand, also known as Professor Brand’s daughter, Romilly, and Doyle. What lies on the other side of the blackhole will rock Cooper to his core with his sole mission of getting back to Murph.
Once again, NOLAN’S FILM IS AWESOME!!! This is one of the best science space films I have seen in a long time. The film starts a bit slowly, but it is worth it as it builds up to something spectacular. The first hour is all about getting your appetite wet. You never really get a reason why the blight started, but you see the damage it has caused. Nolan does a great job of conducting interviews to convey what is happening. You don’t realize who the people are, but one of them is extremely important. When the crew finally makes their way to Saturn, I love how Nolan has Professor Brand drop the poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas. It is a powerful poem that sets the tone of the film and foreshadows what is to come.
When the crew goes through the wormhole, it is beautifully done. The entire scene appears to be something from another world and universe. You can really tell that Nolan went all out with science and the look. It looked like going through stars and then an orb. That was like the appetizer of the film. The freakin wormhole scene was an appetizer because the next scene is where Nolan made you hold your freakin breath.
Nolan’s genius, along with Zimmer’s genius, is on full display with Miller’s planet. First, we learn that the planet is so close to Gargantua that 1 hour on the planet is equivalent to 7 years on Earth. Let that sit in your mind for a second. That is MAJOR time slippage. As Romilly stated, “that’s relativity for you.” Let that sink in: 1 hour is equivalent to 7 years. That is insane, and why the hell would you want to go down to that planet? I want you to realize the genius of this scene. When the crew arrives, Coop hurries them along. The planet is nothing but water. You think it is okay. In the distance, there are mountains, and it seems incredible. Coop gets a funny feeling and sees that it is not mountains. He goes to the other side of the ship and sees a big ass tidal wave coming at them. When you see the wave, you will say, “OH SHIT!” You know shit is about to go down. Brand dumbass fucks it all up. They are hit by a giant wave that floods the engines, and are stuck on the planet for a while. Let me pause and share a secret that you may have heard about this scene. This is where the genius of Zimmer comes in. The music he made for this scene is called “Mountains.” The track is notable for the use of a ticking sound. Each tick you hear is a day passing on Earth. It adds a whole new element to the scene and film. I didn’t notice it before, but when you realize it, your anxiety goes through the roof.
By the time they leave the planet and return, they learn that 23 freakin years have passed on the Endurance. 23 years have gone by in an instant. Nolan doesn’t let up. He has you sit and watch all the videos that Coop has received. They are mostly all from his son. He watches his son’s life go by. Once again, Zimmer brings it with the music. As Coop watches, he sees that his son says this will be his last video. Once the video stops, the music stops. This is so powerful because at that one instant, you know that the relationship between Cooper and his son has officially ended. Nolan reintroduced Murph, played by Jessica Chastain, who is now the same age as Coop when he left. Murph is now one of the leading scientists and Professor Brand’s right-hand. You get the sense that Coop ain’t coming back. If he does, decades would be lost again.
Nolan is relentless from this point on in the journey, as you sense that things are only going to get worse for Coop. Coop, Brand, and the crew decide to go to Mann’s planet. Mann has been in cryostasis, and this dude makes everything worse. Furthermore, we learn that Professor Brand lied to everyone, stating that the mission would be a failure, even on his deathbed. Things go downhill again for Cooper because Mann loses his mind. Nolan consistently incorporates themes and analysis into every scene. Mann represents Mann, the best of us as Brand says but you will see like humanity, dude is selfish and only wants self-preservation. Mann messes up so bad that you might as well give up for Coop, but Nolan has some things up his sleeve.
I’m going to stop here because I don’t want to spoil it any further. Nolan is a genius with this film, and I appreciate that he employed Kip Thorne, a theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate who served as a scientific consultant. When you don’t know, ask someone more intelligent than you. Zimmer is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to making music. His mind and ability to relate music to a scene are on a different level. Dude goes God Mode each time he makes music. Interstellar is a fantastic film, and I will watch it every time it’s on, and I hope you do too.
