In the middle of the gallery Interstellar find, there is a planet targeted for exploration that orbits a supermassive black hole.
The sight is an ethereal and superbly calibrated construct of imagery, broadcasting this lone and fragile rock orbiting an enormous spectrum of light being sucked out of existence. But the name of the black hole is (almost) a byword for the film - Gargantua.
Gargantuan doesn't begin to describe Interstellar - although the film's name is similarly grandiose. At 2 hours and 45 minutes, this is a film to test even the most steely of bladders. It equally possesses an A-list cast, a director widely seen as revolutionary, some of the finest CGI effects money can buy, touts some impressive landscapes, and possesses masses of input from scientific luminaries.
Clearly, there is some high-level work put into this, which has led to a $165million budget - although it was initially budgeted for $10million more than that - and there is much for Paramount to bank on this being major success. In terms of being Oscar-nominated, it certainly will get at least nomination for its SFX work.
There is much to compare Interstellar to previous sci-fi epics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Metropolis, Star Wars, et all, but it begins with influences from documentaries of American history of the 1930's. Clips from 2012 documentary The Dust Bowl permeate the opening of the film, which is superimposed to a screen world a few decades in the future and existing within major problems.
The world has regressed to an agricultural society, with the human race put towards farming, even in spite of large numbers of crops being claimed by blight or dust storms, and some going extinct completely. Indeed, its just corn left to grow, and even that is dying.
Stuck in the dust and dirt is former NASA pilot and now farmer Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), who lives on a corn farm with his family and trying to combat the problem of humanity running out of its food supply.
Following the death of his wife, he lives with his wife's father, as well as two kids - one of whom, his daughter Murph, is complaining of a ghost living in her room. Through a few tricks, the ghost leads Cooper and Murph to the remnants of NASA.
With humanity now denying even the Apollo missions, the mission has been created in secret. Led by Professor Brand (Michael Caine) and his excellent facial hair, this secret mission is all about finding humanity a new home. Cooper is sent to go out and help him solve an equation that can get humanity on a space station and off the dying Earth.
Before then, Cooper and Professor Brand's daughter Amelia (Anne Hathaway) lead a four-man and one sarcastic robot team to find a destination. To help with that, a mysterious wormhole has opened up just beyond the orbit of the planet Saturn, which will help the team go to some other far-away corner of the universe in an instant.
At this point, the film is overtaken by pain-staking explanations of science, including one explanation of how a wormhole works. Rather pointlessly, this is taken just as they are about to enter said wormhole, although you would have thought someone would have explained to Coop what a wormhole might be like before the final hour on the Earth side of the damn thing.
Many in the know have questioned the scientific credentials of this film, and how much the film tries to balance accuracy with entertainment. It is fair however to say this is not a perfect note-for-note cinematic interpretation of science, and it is perhaps unfair to ask it to be anything else to using real science ideas and creations as a launchpad for something more cinema-ready.
But for people with less knowledge, it can feel like being hit over the head with a big book of science-y sounding stuff at times, and throughout the piece, there are long sequences of explanation. Some is necessary. The idea of time dilation is a major factor, and it is played extremely proficiently, and indeed, serves as a key and engaging plot point for the middle and final parts of the movie.
But some of the science does toe the line for entertainment and wonder. Not that this is a bad thing. The proficiency of the visuals is excellent. Much of the space-bound sections of this movie take place in sumptuously detailed vistas, ranging from the surface of icy and rocky planets to black holes to collapsed vistas.
To his credit, director Christopher Nolan prefers real to CGI shots, which gives the planets a realness beyond the simple use of over drawn CGI that punctuates most sci-fi. This is particularly felt on the second planet, which was shot on location in Iceland and shows a myriad of beautiful, slippery glaciers. Plus even when it does GCI, there is no spectacle denial when confronted with a planet filled with nothing but water, and where hyper-gravity leads to 100ft-high tidal waves.
Yet for all its undeniable beauty, it feels laboured at times. At 2 hours 45 minutes, this is a herculean movie, and requires major force of will not to fall asleep during at times. This is not to fault the plot, which doesn't move at that slow a pace and kinda works when analysed in a straight line, but even then, a number of sequences could shortened, and one or two could even be removed.
This is not to fault the actors, who do their best even when the dialogue lurches into the unintentionally hilarious. McConaughey has enjoyed a revival in his fortunes in the last six years that led to an Best Actor Oscar earlier this year, and despite the odd tendency to murmur his vocals from time to time, he is an engaging presence. He and his sandy Carhartt jacket get a ton of screen time across this production, yet he doesn't feel like he's hogging the airtime.
Anne Hathaway and Michael Caine are also excellent on-screen presences, and provide a captivating fluid performance despite being lumpen with most of the faux-science jargon. There are other roles from A-listers that crop up later down the line - Jessica Chastain receives a credit on the film poster, but one other notable one does not. But they do excel when they appear, and give the film a lot of propulsion.
There is also a lovely background role for John Lithgow as the father-in-law to McConaughey's character, and during the opening 45-odd minutes where he appears with him on Earth, the duo bring a great sheen to roles of people who yearn for a time that promised more than the bleak Earth they reside upon.
But while there isn't flaw with actors, there is problems with the final 20 minutes. While experts like Neil deGrasse Tyson have provided something approaching a decent explanation for it, narratively speaking, it feels like a cop-out. Scientifically speaking, it also provides something unsatisfying, even if at least did possess some decent imagination in using it. Like the rest of the film, it looks good, and it also sees composer Hans Zimmer really turn things up to 11 on the church organ.
However, it feels like something approaching a cop out, and it feels like it wants to tie the film up in too neat a bow. It also takes a fair bit of the plausibility out of proceedings, and while it was perhaps fair for it to not be continually obedience to semi-realistic science, it ends on a bum note that dilutes the piece's rating.
In all, Interstellar is a puzzling film. There is a lot of information dotted throughout the plot, almost as a constant underneath to the action itself. To deny it is filled with spectacle is a fallacy, and certainly, in IMAX, it will be looking sumptuous.
There is also nothing wrong with the actors in the piece, but to say this isn't a film without flaws is to overlook the final act's narrative failure, and the clunkiness of the pace.
To say this is among Nolan's best work is to forget The Dark Knight and Inception, and its also not really among the best sci-fi films in the last 5 years, even in spite of the fact it enjoys some of the best visual treatments in that time. But nevertheless, its a thrill ride worth seeing, and there is enough in the movie to at least feel like you haven't wasted your ticket price getting through the screen doors.
Plus if it inspires a wave of trans-galactic explorers, it could be one of the most important films of all...
3/5
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