‘Interstellar’ review: Science fiction meets ‘Inception’ rules and falls short
Director Christopher Nolan is back with Interstellar a science fiction journey which is a hybrid of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 with a healthy dose of Steven Spielberg mixed with Inception. With an all-star cast of Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, Nolan excels at pulling the audience into another fantastic journey.
Basically Cooper (McConaughey) is a former pilot and engineer who now farms corn, Earth’s last sustainable crop after being devastated by a mysterious “Blight.” Cooper’s daughter, Murphy (Mackenzie Foy) discovers a “message” which leads the scientific experts to find a new home for humanity. Cooper leads the team with Anne Hathaway’s Brand, Doyle played by Wes Bentley and David Gyasi’s Romilly. They travel through a wormhole, attempt to overcome the theory of relativity and race against the countdown back on Earth.
The parental bond is key to the audience enduring the near-three hour journey, but Nolan only offers “great scenes” for his stars, but falls short of the Spielberg brilliance. There are countless plot holes that distract from the science Nolan is preaching from a script he co-wrote with his brother Jonathan.
For example, in between dust storms, the characters are seen around bodies of water before sending ONLY four people into space. There doesn’t seem to be much time for humanity, but we only send one team to find a viable planet when we could send multiple teams – it didn’t make sense on screen either.
Hans Zimmer’s score and Nolan’s visuals are amazing as expected, but the audience has to endure bland dialogue and shockingly bad science in between those “great scenes” for McConaughey, Caine, Chastain or even Affleck. Unlike Inception, Interstellar plays too much in the real world for unexplained theories and concepts while keeping the audience in their seats for almost three hours…way too long.
Interstellar also stars David Oyelowo, John Lithgow, Ellen Burstyn, Topher Grace, Bill Irwin, Timothée Chalamet and Elyes Gabel.
Overall Interstellar receives 3 stars out of 5 stars
