'Interstellar' A Review

Interstellar is a space opera about the slow ecological collapse of the Earth and the subsequent mission to find a habitable planet. The film takes place an a not-so-distant future, governments have collapsed after an unnamed war, blight has struck a number of different crops rendering them extinct, and the entire world is threaten with starvation. Cooper(Matthew McConaughey) is a former-pilot current-farmer single-parent raising a son and daughter with the help of his deceased wife's father. Through a magnetic anomaly his daughter Murph discovers the coordinates of the remnants of NASA's base. Cooper is promptly asked to captain the shuttle that will be sent through a worm hole across space time to another galaxy where there are a number of potential Earth replacements. After some agonizing over his family he leaves.

McConaughey as Cooper is relatively tired and flat. Compelling enough to hold attention and center the movie his performance is simply adequate, ultimately he has no magic, no teeth. The performances throughout serve only to further the beautifully shot and relatively convoluted and bloated narrative. Jessica Chastain as grown-up Murph gives us something resembling edge but the concern of the film is with broader philosophical/pseudo-religious ideas and the vastness of the unknown rather than dialogue or emotional development.

The plot twists and turns, goes on unnecessary divergent tangents, rambles at times when it should run. There is a lot of fat on Interstellar. But taken as a whole it is a film that provides a compelling journey with a satisfying and just conclusion. It doesn't have the clarity or focus of 2001: A Space Odyssey but it is gorgeous, imaginative, ambitious, and thought-provoking.

Clunky yet interesting Interstellar is a transportive space adventure that answers the questions it raises although not quite satisfactorily.

See It.