An epic that dares to be mentioned in the same breath as 2001 & Contact

Rating: 9/10 (25 November 2014)

I was debating whether or not it's worthy of more than 8, and despite a few cheesy scenes (the worst offender being the one where Anne Hathaway rambles on about love reaching through time and space across dimensions) it's an incredible adventure. It's a completely different movie to 2001: A Space Odyssey but the scope of the thing draws inevitable comparisons to that and Contact. Favourable ones though, because all three movies are grandiose and have moments where the movie resonates.
I had lost faith in Chris Nolan. I don't care what anyone says, Batman Begins was the only one of the Dark Knight trilogy worth a damn - the other two had horrible pacing, over-cluttered plots and some hamfistedly terrible dialogue all the way through - and Inception was way too complex for it's own good, trying to assign logic and order to dreams and having dreams within dreams, horrible pseudo-intellectual mess that it was. But this thing... I went in expecting nothing and was just staggered by where it took me. I'm not sure if it exceeds my current personal favourite of his, The Prestige, but time will tell.
It's a gripping blend of science-fiction and fantasy, in that the sci-fi doesn't come down to scene after scene of tedious exposition, it's just enough sprinkled around to keep the plot close to plausible without losing the sense of wonder. Theoretical astrophysics which are bleeding edge accurate courtesy of Kip Thorne blend near-seamlessly with the more bombastic flights of fancy to create a space movie that makes 99% of other space movies look like crap. Seriously, it's amazing how small and tired it makes the two JJ Abrams Star Trek reboots look, how unimaginative.
Anyway, enough general heaping praise on it, let's be more specific. Some wonderful acting turns. Matthew McConaughey, who has easily had the best two years of his acting career (a short spot in Wolf of Wall Street, an oddly compelling turn in Dallas Buyer's Club, chemistry with Woody in the True Detective series, god knows what else) continues to deliver as the lead. He has a bit more range here than I've seen from him, certain of the more sentimental scenes he manages to keep grounded and from sliding into saccharine crap. Anne Hathaway has a difficult character and nearly pulls it off, as ever she overcooks some of the emotions but overall I liked her. Michael Caine turns up, has a great final scene and adds some depth to a character that's more plot device than anything. Honourable mentions for the rest of the cast, especially Matt Damon who really needs to do more roles like this one, he proves he can do shadow just as well as light - that's all I can say without ruining plot twists.
Chris Nolan loves practical special effects and models where possible, and I must say this really pays off here - the realism is heightened because there's tangible depth to almost everything on the screen, it doesn't have the CGI fakeness which is getting increasingly easy to spot. Obviously there is some CGI but as much as possible is real, and that makes it much easier to suspend disbelief.
Hans Zimmer, never a film composer I've rated too highly, actually does some impressive work here. I've been listening to the score here and there, as I write this actually, and there's some leitmotif stuff going on, huge dynamic range on some of the pieces that just grabs you, shakes you up, adds some emotion to what is already pretty powerful visuals. When time is a factor on one of the planets, the music underneath ticks and builds and soars with it, it's quite brilliant.
The story is the thing, though. I can throw superlatives at this all day, but really it's about the tale. If it was pure spectacle it'd be no better than most of the filler that clogs up the theatres around the world. I'm not saying the dialogue will blow you away with wit and sophistication - it doesn't need to, it's not fitting to the style anyway - but the subtlety of the majority of the writing isn't overly moralistic, it presents you with imperfect characters capable of both great and terrible things and lets you get on with making your own judgements. Cooper (McConaughey's character) might be the hero for example, but he makes a fair amount of mistakes and takes some huge risks. It tells us what's great about humanity and what's horrible about it without preaching a sermon. What we've done to the planet, why we need to get out into space and look around, think beyond ourselves and keep exploring.
A masterpiece? Very close to it. One of the few that is worth the price of an IMAX ticket too, such is the spectacle.