Interstellar review:

Interstellar is an imaginative movie, but a heavy-handed mix of personal sacrifice and theoretical physics doesn’t leave much room for subtle storytelling.
In the not-too-distant future of Interstellar, Earth has been ravaged by an environmental disaster known as the Blight – forcing humanity to abandon technology and the dreams of discovery, in order to focus on basic survival. To that end, former NASA pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a widowed father of two, is now a farmer tasked with growing one of the planet’s last remaining sustainable crops: corn. In a time when humankind has been asked to put aside personal desire in the interest of a greater good, Cooper has attempted to make peace with farm life, providing for his teenage children, Tom (Timothée Chalamet) and Murph (Mackenzie Foy), as well as his aging father-in-law (John Lithgow). Yet, even as conditions become increasingly dire on Earth, Cooper’s thirst for scientific discovery remains.


However, when Cooper is reunited with an old colleague, Professor Brand (Michael Caine), he is offered a new chance to fulfill an old ambition. Informed that the situation on Earth is much more serious than he previously knew, Cooper is asked to leave his family behind (in an increasingly dangerous world) and set out on an uncertain journey into space – to find humankind a new planet.Director Christopher Nolan has built a career on cerebral storytelling – starting with his feature debut, Following, in 1998. Since that time, the filmmaker has delivered one thought-provoking drama after another (Insomnia, Memento, The Prestige, and Inception) – while also setting a new bar for comic book adaptations with a contemplative three-film exploration of Batman (and his iconic villains). As a result, it should come as no surprise that Nolan’s Interstellar offers another brainy (and visually arresting) moviegoing experience – one that will, very likely, appeal to his base (those who spent hours pouring over minute details in the director’s prior works); however, it may not deliver the same casual appeal that made Inception and The Dark Knight cross-demographic hits.

Interstellar is an imaginative movie, but a heavy-handed mix of personal sacrifice and theoretical physics doesn’t leave much room for subtle storytelling (or particularly memorable action). For a film that is rooted in the love between a father and his daughter, Interstellar offers surprisingly cold (and often stiff) drama – albeit drama that is buoyed by high-minded science fiction scenarios and arresting visuals. Nolan relies heavily on lengthy scenes of surface-level exposition, where characters debate or outright explain complicated physics and philosophical ideas, to educate the audience and ruminate on humanity (both good and bad) in the face of death and destruction.