Interstellar

Interstellar is not a perfect film despite the Nolan touch being present; but it is damn good. The audio and visual experience is absolutely top notch and much better than anything else in that regard. I’d put the soundtrack up there with Road to Perdition as one of the finest scores of all time, just amazing stuff. Plotwise we’re in semi-near future Earth in a more realistic than usual but not entirely realistic doomsday scenario where we need to evacuate the planet within a century or so. So Matthew McConaughey is tasked with saving the world, after a very good exposition and introductory sequence.

I don’t wish to spoil too much of the film but the overall premise is McConaughey promises his daughter that he will return from an impossible journey through a wormhole. A dubious promise to be sure, but this being a movie you should have an idea of how that works out; since it’s Nolan there’s some let’s call it “interesting” stuff that happens along the way. I could read this film pretty well, at some point I've just seen too many movies and have a rough understanding of what has to occur; but it still had some surprises in there.

There are some amazing emotional moments in this movie and it makes no sense how they work so damn well with so little. And then there’s some bits that aren’t quite as great. However, this isn’t a movie where you wonder “what could have been” because it’s still pretty damn good anyway. Sure, sure it’s probably not as good as Inception but it’s also more philosophically interesting than Inception and maybe less of a technical showpiece. The film is definitely superior to The Dark Knight Rises, though the technical achievement here is primarily a digital one whereas in the Batman films the most impressive shots were practical (how do you film 200 police cars in unison converging on a tank in a major city? That’s a 20 million dollar 15 second shot.).

My Dad’s reaction was to compare it directly to 2001 and I have to say it compares quite favorably. Whereas 2001 kind of goes off the deep end eventually this one stays in the realm of possibility maybe? I mean based on what we know maybe not but who the hell actually knows. Robots are scumbags in 2001 and in this they’re the best (goofy looking) fucking character; I’d have a beer with that robot level of comradery. On that note: Fuck Matt Damon, what the fuck are you doing in my movie you fucking asshole; get the fuck out.

This is a really interesting, compelling movie and I’ll probably have to see it a few more times to get an overall read on it. There’s obviously the one negative sequence everyone’s going to point to but it’s not different than Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Dark Knight (which is still by miles and miles the best movie in its genre). It’s not strictly predictable but it has simple, effective foreshadowing that leads to the eventual conclusion. As to what happens in between; well that’s up for debate, you can try to figure it out I guess, it’s not complicated it’s just hard to say whether it is plausible enough, for some it will be and for some it won’t. Is it better than Edge of Tomorrow? Well, Edge of Tomorrow is not going to get Oscar consideration so I’m inclined to favor it and I imagine over the course of time I’ll probably watch Edge 20-30 times and I might only watch Interstellar like 6 or 7; but Interstellar might be slightly better just for the audio/visual combination. Fuck Matt Damon.