Christopher Nolan is so popular that today's top news on IMDb is that he'll direct a movie in 2017 -- with no word on the title, subject, or actors. Personally, I have very mixed feelings about his work. It's consistently admirable and entertaining but always contains bothersome elements that prevent me from loving it, such as an obsession with dead wives and girlfriends. (How does his wife feel about that?)
The protagonist of Interstellar -- identified somewhat confusingly by just his last name, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) -- is a widower, but at least he's not loaded with guilt or vindictiveness. After all, in his time, crop blight has decreased the human population so dramatically that he fears that his daughter Murphy's generation will be the last. (For once, the disaster is not evidently the fault of humans or aliens.) A former astronaut, he's disappointed that schools now teach that the moon landing was a hoax so that kids will be less inclined to become anything other than farmers. Of course, he's not alone: The stealthy remains of NASA have been looking for a habitable world to reach before it's too late. As Cooper discovers, their methods now involve aid from a mysterious source to travel by extra dimensions. He's game to head a mission despite Murphy's protests, but no one can be fully prepared for what happens in the uncharted territory of physics....
The results are not quite as weird as they could have been. The filmmakers did make a point not to include anything that violates currently known scientific laws or prevailing theories. In a good way, the visuals and (lack of) sound come close to a modern equivalent of 2001: A Space Odyssey -- intoxicating but not ridiculous to educated non-physicists. For a while, anyway.
Nevertheless, as usual for Nolan, I wound up looking at supplementary resources for fuller explanations. It wasn't just the physical details, which I learned to take in stride. As the story got a little more intricate, albeit less so than The Dark Knight or Inception, I grew increasingly annoyed at the Nolanian tendency for characters to mumble or otherwise be hard to understand. (Dude likes Michael Caine a little too much.) Also, sometimes they act jerkish for reasons not immediately clear to me. I refused to rewind for clarity, because a runtime of 2 hours and 49 minutes is long enough, even splitting across two days on a long weekend.
To be fair, some of my later difficulty may have come from dividing my attention between the movie and a computer screen -- something I rarely do. I wouldn't say I was bored, just overwhelmed and restless. Had I watched in a theater, I'm sure I'd have found it very exciting, but my mind would still wander.
The mission does not involve as many astronauts as you might allot to save the world, but NASA has only so many resources available. The most interesting secondary character, which isn't saying much, is the curiously named Brand (Anne Hathaway), whose difference in specialty can lead to her butting heads with stubborn Cooper, but a trip like this can't help but bring more than one heightened emotion.
The two large robots aboard, TARS and CASE (neither acronym explained), do not look remotely like living things, yet they do a good job of passing for human in speech. The effect is unduly creepy for non-villains. At least GERTY in Moon had a face to address. Intellectually, I don't mind them having highly nonhuman designs, but I'm not convinced that those shapes are the most practical for their duties. I think someone was aiming for originality first.
Perhaps the least Nolanian aspect is the ending. Sure, it attempts to tie things together philosophically, but this time it actually borders on too sweet. In my book, that's an improvement.
I see that IMDb has Interstellar rated super highly overall, yet a fair number of viewers lash back with assertions that it's not half as smart or together as it makes itself out to be. Me, I consider it about par for the course. I gave it an 8, barely. See it if you feel up for a long mental jog with potential for, but no guarantee of, strong emotional impact.
No comments:
Post a Comment