Ambitious but still no "2001"

Rating: 8/10 (11 November 2014)

Nolan is always somebody to watch out for ever since his popularity soared with "The Dark Knight" trilogy. The box office success of a complex movie like Inception was proof enough. "Interstellar" was the most awaited film of the year for the thinking movie buffs director and he clearly has delivered the expectations to a very large extent.
The movie starts very slow trying to build upon the characters and allowing the audiences to develop a bond with their relations. It explains the need of traveling to the outer space and following the bread crumbs left to them by people they don't know since the world is in a state of extinction for humans after the agriculture gets affected by Dwight. This first half is dedicated a lot to the relationship that the protagonist (Cooper), shares with his family, especially his daughter, who herself plays an important role in the film. The film might look a bit stretched here for its multiple scenes that could have been harmlessly edited but may be Nolan was only trying to save us from complaining the monotony the silence of space and the limited number of characters would later give once they take off their adventure.
It abruptly evolves as a space adventure in the second half where the astronauts are trying to search for the right planet to settle in. But as the movie progresses this potentially fantastic drama is bogged down by turgid discussions of abstruse physics which in a lot of places might be too far to grasp (Romiliy's explanation of his own version of Plan A). The movie still remains largely understandable since those details don't matter much as the plot mostly depends on the outline which even if given casual viewing won't be a work to absorb. The movie is a unique space drama and stands on its own, though it has multiple traces of Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey. It tries to be a lot of things and in the process becomes helplessly pretentious sometimes. But the grand scale and lofty ambitions should not go without saluting the man behind it, Nolan. Like all his other movies he doesn't keep even this completely honest but adds a bit of commercialism here and there with quotes being spoken at the back drop, conventional delivery of one liners and many co-incidences beyond imagination.
The visuals with the blue screen being used as minimal as possible gives it a very real feel and the music is consistently beautiful and quite different from what Hans Zimmer did with few of his last films. When it comes to cinematography I would have still wanted Pfister to do this one as well. But the Nolan regular was limited by time constraints. This is a potential blockbuster as long as people don't mind its length and gaping loopholes, though I still wouldn't call this a game changer "2001", "Blade Runner" or "Matrix" was.