In 2013, Gravity set the bar for space oriented movies. It’s 2014, and the bar has been surpassed by light years. Interstellar goes beyond advanced CGI and animation, it explores the aspects of humanity and our emotions. It exposes our fight for survival, our cowardice, and our love that can span through space and time.
The movie starts with older men and women talking of all the dust that they had to deal with. It then switches to the present, where a futuristic dust bowl is in effect on Earth. This is happening because there was too much over consumption of the Earths resources, which we are experiencing right now, and humans take so much that we start to run out of food. Then there is a farming panic, which makes things worse. They farm repeatedly and, like in the dust bowl of the 1930s, too much top soil was loosened and is blown away by the wind. This creates terrible dust storms that plague the Earth.
The movie only focuses on a small area in America, but the rest of the world is starving as well. The main character, Cooper, is a former engineer and pilot turned farmer. In this starving world, the only thing that matters is growing food, but it’s not working well. In a strange series of events where a “ghost” tells Cooper and his daughter coordinates to a place, they stumble upon a hidden NASA station where an old professor of Coopers is trying to solve the problem of saving the world. The “ghost” will show up later and will give you quite a surprise, so watch out for it.
The people at NASA convince him to pilot a rocket for them to explore beyond the galaxy to try and find another planet that can sustain human life. So the team travels through a wormhole to a completely different galaxy, which is just the beginning of some astonishing CGI effects. They check out planets based on signals sent out by probes containing astronauts posted there ten years ago. That’s when things start to go very wrong, but I won’t reveal any spoilers.
The theme in the movie isn’t about shallow things like “Lets blow a bunch of things with robots.” (I’m looking at you, Michael Bay) or “Whoa, there’s alien life.” This movie is not an exploration of deep space, it’s a journey through human emotions. Cooper is the pilot, but he also has a family that he’s leaving behind by going on this mission. Even though he is so far away from his family, he still loves them. As Anne Hathaway‘s character Brand put it, “Love is the one thing that transcends time and space.”
Cooper isn’t the only one struggling with human emotion. On one of the planets they get a signal from, they find one of the astronauts from ten years ago. Dr. Mann, played by Matt Damon, struggles with his cowardice. He is afraid to be left alone, without human contact. Dr. Mann also shows Cooper how humans, even at the point of imminent death, fight to live. “Do not go gentle into that good night; Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” This is a quote repeated throughout the movie and even in the preview. It’s from a poem called “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas. Thomas wrote this poem for his dying father. It means that you shouldn’t just accept death. Even in old age, you should fight to stay alive. That was the biggest message I got from this movie. Even if everything seems utterly hopeless, you should still fight to get through it.
Along with its deep inner meanings, this movie amazed me with its CGI and animation. The way they showed a wormhole and especially a black hole was fantastic and mesmerizing. If you get the chance, watch this movie in IMAX because it is stunning. It seemed like you were living the movie, especially when they did a bend in the wormhole. The graphics were only made better by the soundtrack. Hans Zimmer produced the music for this movie, and I have to say, he lived up to his reputation. Zimmer has produced music for movies such as Divergent, Transformers, The Dark Knight Rises, and most famously, Pirates of the Caribbean. His music made the movie more dramatic and intense.
Putting all of these elements in one movie may seem impossible, but the director, Christopher Nolan, managed to accomplish just that. I had not even planned on watching this movie because the trailer didn’t give away much and I wasn’t interested, but I am so glad I went to see it. The trailer does not do this movie justice. Take my word for it, this movie is worth the money. I wouldnt be surprised if it won several Oscars. Go see Interstellar in theaters now.
5/5 Stars
