Interstellar

Plot: Life on earth is being destroyed by an airborne disease, and everyone is farming since it is so hard to grow food including Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and his family. Daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy, Jessica Chasten & Ellen Burstyn) thinks she sees a ghost in her room, and they decode a message from the ghost, sending them to a NASA base. Turns out the Cooper used to be an astronaut, so they send him to Saturn to look for a gateway to another galaxy (just like 2001: a Space Odyssey.) Cooper goes through the gateway to investigate worlds on the other side. They find black holes and barely habitable worlds, and after many struggles Cooper arrives beyond 3-D space where the final resolution takes place.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Interstellar is one of the best Sci-Fi movies intellectually: it has big ideas and big motivation. It hits hard on both spirituality and science, and I liked it with my brain. It does not connect emotionally.

There are good scenes too: a great tearful goodbye scene between Coop and Murph which will win Mackenzie Foy many future roles -- so remember her name. There is a suspenseful fight scene, and a gripping tidal wave scene too.

I loved the Hans Zimmer soundtrack, and I am disappointed that individual tracks aren't available to buy. I also liked the silence of space -- that is spaceships did not make jet plane noises like in Star Wars.

As mentioned, I didn't love the movie emotionally. The initial scenes with Coop's dad (John Lithgow) and son, were too slow. Michael Caine's Professor Brand had boring set-up dialog and was really dull.  The ending was a missed opportunity: sleepiness instead of joy. Where were the hugs & kisses? [More in SPOILERS below.]

The photography was a little fuzzy on the giant EPIC screen at MJR in Southgate. I think it was intensionally fuzzy --  see how fuzzy the move poster (above) is. I was not wowed by the space-ship scenes, unlike Star Wars or Star Trek. The spacecraft were work-a-day freighters and not very cool or even interesting. 

Mathew McConaughey was very strong just like he needed to be. I liked two of three Murphs, Chasten and Foy. Anne Hathaway had some good moments. 

Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Mackenzie Foy, Jessica Chastain

Written and directed by: Christopher Nolan

Rating: 3.5 stars: Cool ideas but not always fun-to-watch. It gets 1/2 star for its smartness and strong story. (Not as good as Lucy or Gone Girl. )

1/4

SPOILERS:  [SERIOUSLY DON'T READ THIS]: I loved how the ghosts and "they" were really humans from the future. I liked the concept of a place where time was a spatial dimension, but how every place Coop could see was only one room. Very cool.

I also liked the notion that love transcends space and time.

As mentioned the ending was a missed opportunity. After a lifetime of searching when Murph and Coop reunite, what happens. They didn't even shake hands. Why have her in a hospital room with strangers who did not care about seeing their long-lost hero grandfather. And then in the post ending, Coop is a-drift and is heading back out to space. Does he arrive, and give Brand a hug?  Well no. (About all this end does is set up a sequel.) 

More: Tesseract: the extra-dimensional place inside the blackhole - that is a four dimensional cube. I came across that on Wikipedia.