Chris Nolan impresses with magnificent visuals and a stellar cast, but not the script, in Interstellar

Rating: 5/10 (10 November 2014)

Chris Nolan impresses with magnificent visuals and a stellar cast, but not the script, in Interstellar
Munira Rahman, from Hong Kong
Interstellar is about the journey of a group of explorers to find a liveable place beyond our solar system to save the mankind from extinction due to extreme weather conditions and food shortage on earth.
Mathew McConaughey plays the role of Cooper, a father of two, who used to be a pilot. He comes across a mission to search for liveable place to set up a human colony in a different solar system, as the earth's resources will be depleted within a generation or two. For the sake of the human race, he agrees to join the mission as a pilot and leaves behind his family, never knowing the exact date of return. His daughter, Murph, grows up to become a scientist too and works with Dr. Brand, the key brain behind this mission. Cooper, along with Dr. Brand's daughter – played by Anne Hathaway - hops from planet to planet to work on their plan.
Overall, the film is impressive, in terms of visual effect and background music. The stellar star cast is definitely a strong point of this film. However, the weakest part of the film is its weak and often incoherent script. There are some big loopholes in the plot – something even the average movie buff will not expect from a big name like Christopher Nolan. The ease with which Cooper finds out about the mission and secret Nasa facility is hardly credible – anyone would find it difficult to digest that it was supposed to be the best kept secret of the US government. From then onwards, everything seems very rushed. He quickly leaves his family and joins as the pilot without really getting any training and briefing. And it really isn't comprehensible that why would the US government spend so much money on something where they don't even have any idea if the pilot would be ready to join them or not?
Inside the spacecraft, it is kind of funny how Dr. Romilly explains to Miller the wormhole with a piece of paper and pen. You expect the pilot of such an important mission to be more knowledgeable than that for sure. He is on a space mission, and he doesn't understand black-holes? Bemusing. And when Anne Hathaway insists on following the heart when deciding where to land using their limited resources and fast depleting and fuel because "love can transcend all", it really becomes cheesy and mediocre. They land on different planets and have no idea about the conditions out there that is strange given that their spacecraft is powerful enough to pass through a wormhole, but why wouldn't it be equipped with systems to monitor the outside parameters?
All's well that ends well, and Nolan does give us a happy ending with Cooper passing the algorithm of gravity-space-time to his daughter through Mors codes, from a multi-dimensional space. The human race is saved. And Cooper wakes up in a space station – a colony of humans – orbiting around the Saturn. And then, not unexpectedly given the rest of the film, we get another baffling scenario. Cooper hops onto a spacecraft to find and save Anne Hathaway. He doesn't need to talk to anyone, doesn't need any authorisation, and he simply flies the craft when the audience wasn't sure how and when he learnt to pilot it. Even funnier is the immediate aftermath when an administrator of the space station discovers a ship missing, and looks surprised.
I felt that the director was under some pressure to make another epic and in the process he really didn't pay much attention to the editing. It is almost a three-hour long film with many unnecessary scenes, which could have easily been edited in order to make the film crisper and more compact. The first half is really slow and the film takes a long time to pick up pace. There are many twists and turns, which never really become very captivating. The main cast did a good job in whatever role they were given. Overall, it's a watchable film, but nothing great.