Past Movie Review: Interstellar

For many movies, a great deal can be realized just from the previews, and I remember the movie Interstellar was no exception. What everyone could tell from the previews of this movie was that a former Astronaut who is now a farmer had to go into space to somehow save the world, but he had to leave his young daughter and son behind. Even from the previews, I could tell that there were going to be moments scenes of profound emotion in this movie and the one that stood out the most was when the Astronaut, played by Matthew McConaughey had to leave his daughter and was driving his truck away from his home and she was running after this truck, desperate to try and get him to stay. I thought it was rare that an emotional scene like this would be in a science fiction movie and when I saw Interstellar in November 2014 I thought it was one of the best movies about space travel I had ever seen. We all go to movies to experience emotions outside our own lives and to try and imagine what we would do when faced with huge obstacles. How many of us would be able to risk our lives and never return to Earth for the one remote chance to save not only our own family but even the entire world?

The problems with this film actually start after the first hour and the rest of the movie was set up by circumstances of the world no longer able to grow food and it is suggested that this is because of Global Warming. I thought the advanced physics and time travel concepts involving wormholes were all very impressive, but many times towards the end of this movie, several events and explanations started to not make any sense. For these reasons, Interstellar started to remind me of the movie Contact that was released in 1997 which started out with great ideas and special effects and at the end degraded into a very unsatisfying ending. The idea of a 4th or a 5th dimension, a time portal into a room from the distant past all were so outlandish that for me it almost spoiled all of the great things about this film. It is obvious that the director and writer of Interstellar, Christopher Nolan wanted people to talk about and try to figure out this film long after they had seen it. But in order to accomplish this goal, too many events at the end of this story just were either ridiculous or made no sense. In my opinion, the ultimate goal in telling any story is to make it feasible, enjoyable and understandable and this is why screenwriting is such a difficult art form.

Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain also star in this film along with John Lithgow and Michael Caine and they are all excellent in their roles. In my opinion, the impressive parts of this movie and excellent acting outweigh the flaws that all come at the end of the story. I definitely recommend Interstellar.