Interstellar

Rating: 7/10 (11 December 2014)

I saw the poster for this film long before its release, and it was billed to be a big blockbuster, the success of space movie Gravity probably helped the hype, directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia, The Dark Knight, Inception). Basically in the near future Earth is facing the extinction of the human race due to drought, famine and extreme climate change. Widowed former science engineer and NASA pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) runs a farm with his father-in-law Donald (John Lithgow) and lives with teenage son Tom (Timothée Chalamet) and ten year old daughter Murphy "Murph" (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn's Mackenzie Foy), she believes her room is haunted, the "ghost" she and Cooper discover is communicating through gravitational waves, leaving binary coordinates in dust. These coordinates direct Cooper to a secret NASA installation led by Professor John Brand (Sir Michael Caine), there may be hope for the human race to survive; a wormhole, created by alien intelligence, discovered in the further reaches of the solar system, leading to another galaxy, surrounding the black hole Gargantua three potentially habitable worlds have been identified, named Miller, Edmunds, and Mann, after scientists who surveyed them. Cooper is recruited to pilot the spacecraft Endurance to explore these planets, if one of them can sustain life then humanity will follow in space stations, but this means he will be away from home for many years, but this mission is important, Murph is devastated by his departure, they part on bad terms. On Endurance, Cooper is joined by Brand's biologist daughter Amelia (Anne Hathaway), scientists Romilly (Cloud Atlas's David Gyasi) and Doyle (American Beauty's Wes Bentley), and robots TARS (voiced by The Grinch's Bill Irwin) and CASE (voiced by Josh Stewart), the scientists go into hibernation while the craft travels towards the black hole, once close they awake and try to withstand the turbulent effects. The first head to planet Miller, but it being so close to Gargantua means it experiences severe gravitational time dilation: every hour on the surface is seven years on Earth, it is inhospitable, being covered by shallow ocean that experiences enormous tidal waves, Amelia tries to recover data, but Doyle is killed and departure is delayed, returning to the shuttle Cooper and Amelia find 23 years has passed. Back on Earth, adult Murph (Zero Dark Thirty's Jessica Chastain) is now a NASA scientist assisting Brand with his equation to enable NASA to launch the massive space station, near death Brand admits he already solved the problem and determined it is an impossible project, he covered this up and put faith in "Plan B": using fertilised embryos to start humanity anew, however Murph says the equation could work with additional data from a black hole's singularity. The Endurance only has enough fuel to visit one more planet, after a tense vote they decide Mann is best, however landing they find it is icy and inhospitable, they do however find Dr. Mann (Matt Damon) in hibernation, awoken he tells everything he knows about the mission, he knew "Plan B" was the true goal, he faked data to be rescued. In a moment of madness Mann breaks Cooper's spacesuit visor and leaves him to die, fleeing to Endurance on a shuttle, Romilly is killed by a bomb Mann planted, Amelia rescues Cooper and they get to Endurance, just as Mann docks improperly and causes the airlock to explode, serious damage is caused, but Cooper gets Endurance under control using the shuttle. Nearly out of fuel Cooper and Amelia plan to slingshot Endurance around Gargantua towards Edmunds, Cooper sacrifices himself with TARS to collect data on the singularity, detaching into the black hole and propelling Amelia by dropping the ship's mass, Cooper and TARS enter an extra-dimensional "tesseract", where time appears as a spatial dimension and portals show glimpses of Murph's childhood bedroom at various times. Cooper realises the alien beings may be human from the future who have constructed this space for him to communicate with Murph and save humanity, the coordinates from previously were in fact Cooper himself, finding adult Murph in the "tesseract" he uses gravitational waves to encode TARS's data on the singularity into Murph's watch, with this she solves Brand's equation and the process of evacuating Earth begins, the "tesseract" is closed and Cooper ejected from Gargantua back into the Solar System near Saturn. Time dilation from the entire mission means that humans have evolved to become an advanced space faring race, Cooper is found by a space police vehicle before his oxygen level drops, he wakes on-board "Cooper's Station", he explores the alternative world, and he reunites with elderly Murph (The Exorcist's Ellen Burstyn) who led the exodus of humanity, she advises Cooper and TARS to search for Amelia, who has begun preparation on the planet Edmunds. Also starring Casey Affleck as adult Tom Cooper, Spider-Man 3's Topher Grace as Getty, The Last King of Scotland's David Oyelowo as School Principal and William Devane as Williams. McConaughey holds it together well as the forthright pilot into space, Hathaway is good being informative, Chastain does well as the angry but important daughter, Damon is a welcome surprise, and Caine gets his moments as the wild old man. The majority of the film has similar scale and vision to 2001: A Space Odyssey, utilising fantastic special effects for spectacular visuals and extra-terrestrial worlds, I can see elements of Silent Running as well, it does get soppy towards the end with a concept like Contact (coincidentally also starring McConaughey), but overall it is a majestic space film with plenty to offer, including heart, a worthwhile science-fiction adventure. It won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, and it was nominated for Best Music for Hans Zimmer, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing and Best Production Design, it won the BAFTA for Best Special Visual Effects, and it was nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Original Music and Best Production Design, and it was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Original Score. Very good!