INTERSTELLAR - updated

(2014) 169 Minutes, Rated PG-13
Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Caine

Dad's Review: Matthew McConaughey plays Cooper, a widowed NASA astronaut engineer in this movie which takes place initially on near future Earth which is rapidly becoming no longer habitable. His daughter, Murphy, nicknamed “Murph”, played by Jessica Chastain, is a very intelligent young lady who takes after her father. She loves technical things which makes her teachers upset. They say that it’s the technical people who got the Earth in the bad shape it’s in now and want her to consider being a farmer as that is what is needed now. Cooper receives a Morse code message which he and Murph figure out is actually the coordinates for a specific location. Cooper goes to the location and discovers a secret which is the basis for the movie. 

It is a very well thought out and acted movie and the science is also excellent and plausible especially now that we have a better understanding of the relation between relativity and quantum physics and that they still have not been reconciled together as yet to this day. Makes for a very thought provoking and interesting movie as well as a great love story.

It is an entertaining movie which I thoroughly enjoyed. 

Best scene: Cooper goes off to meet his true love, Dr. Amelia Brand.

Dad’s Rating:   Must See.

Mike's Review: In a word. Wow!  This movie is almost 3 hours long and it could have easily been 4 hours long. This movie deserves all the hype it is getting.  The story was so complex and simple at the same time.  The effects and space scenes were out of this world.  I even liked the NASA block robots.

This is one of those movies you could write about and talk about for days.  But it is just better to see it for your self and be blown away by the awesomeness that it is. I would really like to see a sequel to this movie or even an extended cut DVD just to get more.  

Best scene:  The ending was great.

Mike’s Rating:  Must See!

A.C.'s Review:  I was not sure if I should write a review about this movie because I am admittedly biased. Being an avid movie goer I am well aware of the legion of fans  who believe director Christopher Nolan is some combination between the Second Coming of Christ and Alfred Hitchcock. I’ve never understood this and in fact believe INCEPTION was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Still being a kid when the Apollo space mission were a big deal I have always been interested in space travel so a movie like his I wanted to see.

It tells the tale of astronaut turned farmer named Cooper and his daughter Murphy. For some reason the Earth is heading for extinction because crops are beginning to fail, something to do with the soil and the dying world is plagued by dust storms. Through mysterious circumstances (well to anyone who has never watched an episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE I suppose) Coop and Murph are led to a secret NASA facility where Coop’s old friend Dr. Grant (Michael Caine) is heading up a clandestine project that has been sending manned space ships through a wormhole in space discovered by Saturn years earlier. Cooper is quickly recruited into the goal of launching in a ship with Grant’s daughter scientist/astronaut played by Anne Hathaway (whose hair apparently has not grown back since her role in LES MISERABLES) along with a couple of Star Trek type “Red Shirts” to traverse the wormhole to make contact with three earlier missions and find out which of the three worlds they were sent to would be suitable to start colonizing.

The movie runs nearly 3 hours but still manages not to find time to explain certain things. For instance early in the movie an air force drone flies over their farm and using a laptop Cooper takes control of it so he can crash land it and take its solar battery. Exactly how does he do this? And why does he refer to their being no military anymore? No answers. Later in the movie the crew visits the first planet and they offer an explanation that an hour on the planet equals 7 earth years going by. Said explanation goes by so quick that I am still not sure how that  time difference was possible…however it’s more a less an allowance for Murphy to go from being a 10 year old to being played by Jessica Chastain when we next see her.

Visually Nolan delivers an impressive looking film (I treated myself to RPX for the experience) but its saddled with not the most compelling story (though it should be) and a miscast leading man in Matthew McCaughey. It tries too hard near the climax to pull off  being a spiritual successor to the movie 2001 (there are tons of homage mixed in the film from AI unites shaped like the Monolith to an abundance of organ music).

When all is said in done I think this movie as a good example of the studios buying into the hype of a director who turned in some good Batman films. Based on that good will they gave him $165 million dollars to make this movie and carte blanche to do with as he pleased. The movie was outdrawn opening weekend at the box office by BIG HERO 6 and this may sober up Tinseltown and bring Nolan back down to earth no pun intended.

Best Scene: A silent explosion in space just as the de facto villain begins to monologue.

A.C.'s Rating: Matinee