Interstellar dir. by

11 November 2014


Genre:
Script: ,
Cast: , , ,
Setting: ,
Rated :

Some time in the near future a blight hits earth. At first it hits the wheat and then spreads to other crops. The whole world turns its attention to farming, to making sure enough food is being produced. All other endeavour takes a back seat to the attempts of humanity to survive.

Cooper was once a pilot for NASA, an explorer who looked to the skies, now he is a farmer, sees himself reduced to a caretaker, stuck staring at the dirt. But strange things are happening in his farm. Gravity is acting unusually. And his daughter, Murphy, believes there is a ghost in her room. A ghost that gives them the coordinates to a secret NASA base in binary. This leads to Cooper being recruited to leave earth and search for humanity’s new home.

None of this should be a spoiler to you if you’ve seen a trailer for the film.

Now, perhaps this film suffers because of my expectations with regards to Nolan’s film, but it was a disappointment to me. The story was predictable. I don’t to to figure out where a film’s storyline is going, but in this case I knew what was going to happen throughout the film. Not just once, but in scene after scene I found myself thinking I bet x happens. And then x would happen.

I also found the story to be overlong and, to put it bluntly, a bit boring in parts.

Which is such a shame because there is loads that could have helped me love this film. Scientists, real scientists working to save the world not just action heroes. An exploration of a the relationship between a father and his daughter. Female scientists. And real science, not just hand-wavery science. It brought up how culture shifts to deal with catastrophe and disaster. It has women in important roles.

But the story wasn’t strong enough. The characters weren’t strong enough. And all the pretty pretty space couldn’t make this film work for me.

I don’t want to damn it too much, but the more I think about Interstellar the more I think it failed. Which makes me sad. Because it isn’t a bad film. It was competent, but it could have been so much better.

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