This is what sci-fi is for

Rating: 10/10 (15 March 2015)

Some people - sadly many movie critics - don't get science fiction. They see it as nothing more than a bunch of techno-babble and futuristic eye-candy designed to pander to the unevolved tastes of schoolboys and grown-up nerds. Superficial, they call it. I say it is they who cannot see past the surface.
Like many people, I love sci-fi not for its bling, but for its ability to bring truly epic stories. When you get to use the vastness of space and the intricacies of time travel as plot elements, you can write a story that's simply on another plane. A story that puts mankind and the human condition in a much grander perspective then any other format allows.
Of course, sci-fi has just as many bad screenplays and productions as any other genre. It doesn't always work. With Interstellar it resoundingly *does*, however, as Christopher Nolan reveals himself to be a true master of its instruments. He uses space, to show loneliness that only the vastness of the cosmos can inspire, and time, to create an expanse of separation that is heart-wrenching unlike anything that could exist on Earth.
As with many of the best sci-fi stories, the driving force behind the plot is the threat mankind's extinction, but it's a threat that is simple, believable and not overplayed. Another hallmark of good science fiction that it displays is the use of good science. Why some critics have chosen this film in particular to pick holes in, I fail to understand. The ideas on which it is based have a firm grounding in theoretical physics (something we likely have Kip Thorne to thank for). Naturally, the film allows itself some freedom to develop these ideas and speculate on the more interesting possibilities that follow from them, but that is where the -fiction suffix comes in. The important thing is that very little of what happens in the movie seems patently impossible given our current knowledge of physics, while the more wildly imaginative elements that it affords itself are scientifically in uncharted territory. This too, is exactly as it should be.
The only thing I could fault Interstellar for is the Love-as-a-cosmic-force angle, which is becoming a little trite as a sci-fi/fantasy trope. Fortunately, the plot doesn't lean that heavily on it and it never really bothered me.
In short, Interstellar has all the makings of a classic within cinema at large, and as a standard within its genre by which other films will be measured.