Must watch

Rating: 9/10 (16 March 2015)

I watched Interstellar after completing my third re-watch of the Farscape series. As soon as talk of wormholes kicked in, I couldn't help but think of John Crichton and I felt sorry for all other Sci Fi films and TV series once Interstellar explained that they'd been depicting wormholes incorrectly all this time! In fairness, wormholes are only theoretical so I say each to their own interpretation.
The film is extremely long. I actually don't mind when an excellent film is very long but I do mind when I spot lots of scenes that could easily have been edited down. One example being: do we need to watch someone climb all the way down a flight of stairs? Especially when they have no more dialogue? I would have expected more characters to have time to be developed but despite the nearly three-hour run time, I have no understanding for why Cooper's son turned out the way he did and there was barely any backstory for the majority of the main characters.
Having said that, there was plenty of time to fully explore the Sci Fi aspects of the film which is what we're all really here for. I remember thinking that Interstellar is what Contact (1997) should have been as opposed to the massive anti-climax that it was. In fact, it's what Gravity (2013) should have been what with all the fuss over it. Contact was a great film but a bit before its time I'm guessing, whereas Gravity felt more like a test run before releasing Interstellar. I'm sure it wasn't, it's just that Gravity was such a bad film; nothing happened! The storyline had been done a thousand times before, only this time it was set in space. And that appalling ending!
Interstellar gets so many things right. It doesn't shy away from the meaty Sci Fi stuff that people like me want to see. We actually get to see the wormhole, black hole, dimensions and planets. There's an intense atmosphere generated throughout the entire film and I was constantly in full hyper-alert mode for extended periods of time. I loved the backstory of why people on Earth were suffering because they kept it simple and believable. Occasionally, a ridiculous plot twist or explanation would trigger my 'as if' reflex but later, it would be explained so that it was no longer daft, for example; they would make an assumption which would later prove to have been wrong however, although this provides immediate relief for the part of you that's still screaming 'what?!' at the screen, it doesn't change the fact that you just spent half an hour or so silently seething about the stupidity of the plot.
I enjoyed so much of this film but I do have to take a moment to acknowledge the poor casting. It's a pure Hollywood vehicle of course and one of only a handful of genuinely incredible films that have been released in the past few years so of course everyone and their best pal is going to want a piece of it. They slowly introduce new characters so it's never too much of a shock to the system when a familiar face appears but one or two were just badly miscast. Matt Damon for example, has this weird thing where at first, he is Matt Damon; same look, same voice and same mannerisms, but then something will happen and he'll end up acting everyone off the screen with his ability to make you empathise even when you shouldn't. His role here is no different. My reaction to his appearance started out as 'well, this film's ruined' and ended with 'only he could have pulled that off'.
It has to be said: Matthew McConaughey needs to calm down. There are some signature mannerisms that he's taken to and it all comes across as quite egotistical. I think he accomplished something in his career that few ever have or could but I reckon a lot of his success was down to his humility and great personality which translated to people wanting to help him but the more aloof and serious he acts (literally), the more this puts me off him as an actor. No disrespect intended, but McConaughey has never changed his accent (as far as I'm aware), has never done any character acting and has essentially been playing the same character in every film for years. It seems that he's worked out that talking really slowly and keeping a serious scowl on his face for two to three hours, makes people take his performance more seriously and mistake that for 'great acting'. I would rather he went back to having an approachable demeanour and worked on his ability to transform himself than take the lazy route of just being super serious all the time. It gets old. Also, the fake tan was out of control and actually quite distracting.
Once you've watched Interstellar, you'll be Googling things like "gravitational time dilation" and wondering when you will next have a spare three hours to watch the film again. Flaws and all.
9/10