INTERSTELLAR

Christopher Nolan's films are so good because he takes fantastical themes, or outlandish summer blockbuster material if you prefer,  and makes it believable. He introduces reality, or the perception of reality, to the unreal. Plausibility is the key.

So who better to make a ‘hard sci fi’ epic than Christopher Nolan? Interstellar feels almost like a  spiritual companion to 2001 A Space Odyssey, if less daring (but then what is?). With a film like this - clocking in at nearly 3 hours long, pondering man's place in the Universe, the survival of the species and the exploration of space - it cannot fail to be informed by the classics of the genre. That doesn't mean it's derivative, it's just cut from the same cloth. The three hours fly by. It is immersive, gripping film making.

If you can go into this with as little knowledge of the plot as possible, the experience will be all the better for it. I provide scant plot details here simply as a taster.

In the near future, Earth is on its last legs. A decimated population existing on a planet reduced to a dust bowl. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is a widower, living on his farm with his two kids and father-in-law (John Lithgow). An ex-engineer and pilot by trade, farming has now becoming more valuable to an ailing humanity than anything else.

Cooper and his daughter, Murph, encounter the remnants of NASA, led by Professor Brand (Michael Caine), and Cooper learns that within a generation there will be nothing able to grow. The Earth is doomed, but a plan has been hatched to get out into the stars, and explore the possibilities of other planets for sustaining life. As the only pilot to have flown outside of a simulator, Cooper must make the choice whether to lead this mission or remain home with his children. To try to save humanity or stay behind and wilt with its crops.

McConaughey is excellent, amongst a 'stellar' cast that also includes Anne Hathaway, Casey Affleck, Jessica Chastain and Topher Grace. Interstellar absorbs you as you sink into this tale of exploration and bravery. It had me hooked from the word go. I loved the concept, the characters, the tech (especially the monolithic robots TARS and CASE) and above all the journey.

If there are a couple of minor faults, then I would have preferred there to have been no 'villain'. It would have been nice for this film to have been simply about humanity versus the Universe rather than having that personified by a character in part of the movie. Nonetheless it makes for some truly exciting spectacle that is otherwise hard to find fault with.

The second is a couple of nagging plot points, that are perhaps not so much plot holes, as they are lost to the whirlwind of exposition. But that really is minor quibbling.

The science and the technology could be bunk for all I know - uneducated layman that I am - and certainly I have read more than one review that has been overly concerned with nit picking the science. You could do that of course but it would be to overlook the fundamental thing about it - it's science fiction. The point of Interstellar, as with Nolan's other movies, is that it feels real. It's not a documentary, and it is not 2001 A Space Odyssey, but it is an intelligent and engaging science fiction movie, and there aren't enough of those about these days.

IMBD: Interstellar