Going Further

In the past two years, Christopher Nolan has disappointed me. Now before you tie me to a stake and burn me alive, or make a pencil disappear into my head (chuckle chuckle), just hear me out.

Photo Courtesy of RancidRainbow.com

I think most of us can admit that The Dark Knight Rises was a bit of a misstep for Nolan, and not a terrific ending to one of the best superhero film adaptations of our time. Although it looked gorgeous, delivered good performances, and had Anne Hathaway in a leather body suit, it was a film that fell flat and left more questions than it promised to answer. this was followed by Man of Steel and Transcendence, both produced by Nolan that failed to live up to there hype.

I spite of these misguided endeavors, when I heard that Nolan was to co write and direct a space exploration epic in the vein of Kubrick and Tarkovsky, I knew this would be a step in the right direction. As production details emerged over the course of the year, like the use of practical special effects and limited CGI, I only became more and more excited. With the addition of Matthew McConaughey, I found myself content with the casting choice due to his True Detective performance, and was not the least bit surprised that Michael Caine would play a role (In a Chris Nolan film, SHOCKER!).

About a month before the film's release, my friend and I pre-ordered IMAX tickets for the Minneapolis Zoo IMAX to be screened a week before the film's release. After the film was over, I felt like the 18 dollars and 25 cents I spent were totally worth it.

I think I can safely say that Interstellar was one of the most enjoyable cinema experiences I've had all year, and coming off the heals of Guardians of the Galaxy that is saying quite a lot.

Photo courtesy of wired.com

The film stars McConaughey as "Cooper", a former NASA pilot now living as a corn farmer in a dystopic agrarian future ravaged by a global dust bowl that threatens to end humanity's existence. With no governments, space travel is obsolete, but series of events leads Cooper and his genius daughter (Mackenzie Foy, and Jessica Chastain as an adult) to a secret NASA facility headed by his former boss (Michael Caine) and his astronaut daughter (Anne Hathaway) who have discovered a mysterious worm hole and intend to travel through it where there are possibly inhabitable planets that could save humanity.

Travelling on the space station/ship hybrid Endurance, they are accompanied by two Artificial Intelligence droids called TARS and KIPP. The AI's really stood out in terms of technology and character presence, much like HAL from 2001, these AI's are crucial to the ship's functions. I was expecting at one point for them to go haywire and try to kill the crew members, but this never happened, and was a surprisingly original element to the film.

The only real complaints I have would be some points of the script and the acting of Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway. Chastain seemed robotic and un-coached, and did not deliver the same heart breaking performance of Mackenzie Foy as her younger self. Hathaway was a rather forgetable character who complained a lot a seemed to be the cause of several problems with the mission. despite this, the other cast performances were quite good.
     
Overall, this was a very well done film that managed to capture my imagination and redeem Christoper Nolan as a filmmaker to me, one more strong point would be the mesmerizing Hans Zimmer soundtrack, a piece of music I would like to argue is his best work.

Interstellar opened in IMAX on November 5th and had a wide release on November 7th