Interstellar (2014)

** ½ out of ****

The wind is still out of my sails..... I walked into the theatre for “Interstellar” expecting greatness, or near greatness. After a promising beginning, it ended up a giant letdown.

That isn't to say “Interstellar” is a complete disaster – it's not. In fact, for the first two hours of its two hours forty-five minutes I was pretty thrilled by what I was watching due to the authenticity of the filmmaking, the accuracy of most of the science presented and the flow of the story. But it takes a huge left turn into “WHAT?” with about 45 minutes to go.

The actual date is never presented, but the film takes place in the near future (say a century or two from now). For reasons that are never really explored, Earth is becoming less and less habitable with persistent and violent dust storms and agriculture ravaged by disease. All remaining resources are poured into farming, as the food supply is now the world's greatest crisis. Matthew McConaughey is Cooper, a former engineer and astronaut now turned farmer who scratches a living out of the dusty earth. He has a son that loves the rural lifestyle and a daughter, Murph, who is one of those kids blessed with great curiosity and a desire to do something more.

As the film unfolds we find that NASA does still exist out of the public eye, and has secretly been exploring a wormhole near Saturn. They are trying to find a suitable planet for humanity's relocation before Earth becomes completely uninhabitable. Years earlier they sent initial explorers into the wormhole as advance teams, but the results are unknown. Now led by an old acquaintance of Cooper (Michael Caine) NASA is planning a follow up expedition to determine which explored planet will become the target for relocation.

I have to note at this point that for a secretly run and underfunded agency, NASA's new spaceships are pretty awesome.  Way more capable than they should have been given the financial constraints.... but I guess that was necessary for the expedition at hand.

One of the primary themes of the expedition is time – Cooper knows that if he participates he will miss much of his childrens' lives. The sheer time required for the space travel, coupled with the relativistic issues they will encounter will see him gone for decades, if not longer. Of course, the greater good needing to be served, and his being the best possible candidate, Cooper finds himself in the pilot seat.

The visual effects we see in this film are alternately spectacular and simple. When easiest to convey the story the filmmakers kept it as simple as possible, while other times it is visually stunning. The trip through the wormhole is particularly impressive. The exploration storyline is tense and exciting, and you find those first hours passing quickly. Clearly influenced by similarly themed films (“2001” and “Contact” are two definites), and aided greatly by a fantastic supporting cast (including Matt Damon, Wes Bentley, John Lithgow, Jessica Chastain, Casey Affleck and Topher Grace) the stage is set for a grand conclusion......

…..but it never really delivers. Exploration gives way to intrigue as baser human desires cause the entire mission (and therefore all of humankind) to be endangered in an unrealistic fashion.  Then in tying the ending to the beginning, the film loses its cohesion completely. After spending the majority of the movie being as true as possible to scientific realities, they completely throw quantum mechanics out the window to provide us with a Hollywood ending that left me shaking my head. The film “Contact” (1997) left me feeling much the same – after setting everything up beautifully, the left turn into weirdness left an empty feeling about the conclusion.

Does the weakness of the ending ruin the film? Not completely – I would still recommend it. But after such a wonderful setup it is a shame they left any remote reality at the door by the end.

“Interstellar” doe provide some very thought-provoking material throughout, but isn't in your face with "messages". The fragility of our planet as a suitable home for human life is a very real issue and even if you don't think about it much, at some point in the future of humanity we may need to look for possible alternate planets to colonize. Granted this is hundreds or probably even thousands of years away, but as someone interested in quantum theory, evolutionary biology and climate change I found the basic idea of the film to be fascinating. 

 It doesn't deliver everything it could have, but strong performances and top-of-the line production values still make it intriguing enough to pay your admission.