Interstellar

A film that is, truly, out of this world.

The official movie poster.
The official movie poster.

The title of “Interstellar”, director Christopher Nolan’s newest masterpiece, is misleading, as it only allows a small glimpse into the powerful and complex epic that the director presents to the world yet again. Described by some as a blend of Nolan’s previous work, “Inception”, and 2013’s seven-time Oscar winning “Gravity,” the movie extends far beyond that.

In the 22nd century, planet Earth and its inhabitants face extinction, and they are desperate. Our home is plagued by an airborne disease dubbed The Blight that affects both humans and plants. Earth, unfortunately, is slowly losing its ability to sustain life. What is left of human civilization is slowly crumbling away into dust.

A family of farmers, fathered by NASA ex-pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), grows restless as the dust around them begins to erode everything away. One day a supernatural force from unknown origins, or as Cooper’s daughter Murph refers to it, a ghost, manifests its presence with strange messages in Morse code. He and his daughter decipher the messages, revealing the coordinates to an establishment that has long been abandoned: NASA.

For years, NASA’s scientists have worked in secret to conjure up a solution for Earth’s impending demise with something that the future’s societies have turned away from: technology. The astronomers, with a sudden lucky break, discover a wormhole that proves to be their ticket off of the exhausted planet.

An old face, Dr. Brand (Michael Caine), greets Coop and presents him with his plan to find another home.  In order to survive, two plans have been devised. Plan A, turning NASA’s last headquarters into a space station, or Plan B, creating a whole new colony of humans artificially on a new planet. The only way to do so is by sending a group of brave scientists and pilots through the wormhole to scout for a new planet.

Cooper is chosen to lead the mission, but to be a part of this mission he must leave his children and farm for an indefinite amount of time.  Ultimately, Cooper ventures into space along with a diverse team of intellectuals who are also leaving everything behind for the sake of humanity.

The ambitious team embarks on this journey, but they face many dangers and take many risks. However, for Coop and his team, their greatest fear is not traveling through uncharted territory light years away from Earth, not even death, but the passage of time.

The cast of the movie superbly represents their characters — their flaws, strengths, fears and growth. The movie’s special effects are not spectacular or exaggerated, but realistic. The few times special effects are used, they are not only magnificent, but they do not leave the viewer thinking “That is totally not possible!” unlike many sci-fi films today.

Another flawless aspect of the movie is the music score. Classical as well as electronic music, ranging in speed and volume, highlight the movie’s dramatic moments and enhance the experience overall. Hans Zimmer, renowned for orchestrating the best pieces known to cinematography, has lived up to his name once again.

As for “Interstellar’s” scientific accuracy, as noted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the movie receives high marks. The consulted theoretical physicist, Kip Stephen Thorne, helped the film to be as scientifically plausible as possible. In the end, with the use of Thorne’s equations and Double Negative’s CGI, the visual effects of the movie would near, according Wired, “800 terabytes of data with each individual frame taking nearly one hundred hours to render.”

Despite the slow initial exposition, the movie accelerates, becoming heart-stopping, intense, and containing a phenomenal amount of plot twists; the viewer will find it nearly impossible to predict an ending, proving to be exciting and somewhat maddening.

Over the course of nearly three hours, Nolan’s masterpiece takes the audience on an epic journey that will have it laughing, crying, screaming and on the edge of their seats. Anyone, regardless of age or opinions on astronomy and science fiction, will be able to enjoy the space-bound adventure. To say that this movie blew our  minds would, honestly, be an understatement of stellar proportions.