Interstellar Is Christopher Nolan’s 2001: A Space Odyssey – A Review

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With the way we’re going, maybe this future isn’t too far off.

Interstellar takes place in some distant future. The crops are slowly dying and corn is all that is left. Mankind is on the brink of extinction. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is a farmer/ex-pilot raising two kids by himself, he wife died from cancer some years earlier. We are slowly introduced to Cooper and his kids Murphy (Mackenzie Foy) and Tom (Timothee Chalamet). We are also slowly introduced to the horrible world that these characters are living in. I found this to be a very strong opening for the film. We aren’t spoon-fed the life they live with a paragraph or two at the beginning explaining this bleak future. No. Through action and dialogue the audience slowly learns what hardships these people are actually living in, and I found this very effective.

All while dealing with these troubles Murphy thinks that her room might be haunted; books keep falling off the shelves. She thinks this “ghost” is trying to tell her something. She turns out to be right, and while Cooper doesn’t believe it’s a ghost, he does believe that they have been given very specific coordinates. He figures out where on the map those coordinates lead and the two of them head there, with Tom saying behind with his grandfather Donald (John Lithgow).

Cooper and Murphy stumble onto the remanence of NASA, led by Prof. Brand (Michael Caine). Also there is Brand’s daughter Amelia (Anne Hathaway) and others. Prof. Brand convinces Cooper that he was brought to them for a reason and that reason is to pilot their spacecraft into outer-space to a wormhole they’ve been studying that they think might lead to a planet that the inhabitants of Earth could move to. Reluctantly Cooper agrees and they take off to go where no person has gone before, leaving a very upset Murphy behind.

From here the film very much becomes Nolan’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is much more a cerebral film than an action film. Yes, Cooper and crew visit other planets and deal with some strange situations. Yes, they encounter some unexpected problems long the way. However, whatever you think this movie might be about, it probably isn’t. As I sat and watched this near three hour film I fell further and further down Nolan’s rabbit hole. The film got stranger and stranger and I became more and more enwrapped by what I saw.

This is definitely a film that should be seen in IMAX. There are IMAX shots in this film that are breathtaking. Even if you end up not enjoying the film as a whole, you’ll still walk away with those beautiful, majestic shots burned in the back of your retinas.

This film deals with a lot of ethereal ideas like relativity and fifth dimensions. I can’t pretend to be an expert on these theories, so I can’t pretend to know whether Nolan and crew got them right or not. All I know is I was fully enwrapped in this crazy tale that the Nolan brothers have concocted and I would be more than happy to visit it again.

In fact, I feel like I need to see it again in order to fully wrap my head around what I’d just seen.

This film was shot for IMAX and I highly suggest and if you plan on seeing the film, please see it in on the giant IMAX screen. Frankly, you would be doing yourself a disservice not to see the film there.

This film tackles some very interesting subjects and introduces some pretty great casting along the way. There are a couple cameos here that I wasn’t reality expecting.

McConaughey is fantastic in the role of Cooper, in fact the acting across the board is really strong. McConaughey really continues is resurgence here taking yet another strong and memorable role.

This is a film about family if nothing else, and in shows the importance of family and the love that ties them together in some very strange and unexpected ways.

This film is more or less pretty straightforward until it takes a twist and goes full 2001. However, it does this in a very unique and memorable way. It manages to be an obvious homage to Kubrick’s space ballet without being a copy of it.

So what does it all boil down too? What does it all mean? I think Interstellar is a very fascinating and unrelenting look and what’s happened in the last couple years on our planet and where it could lead if we don’t change things. However, that said , Interstellar isn’t a super preachy film. It subtly throws its message at you as the rest of it plays out in the story.

I very much look forward to seeing Interstellar again and figuring out exactly what I think about it. However, having only seen it once at this point, here is my score for it… for now.


Director: Christopher Nolan
Notable Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Wes Bentley Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, John Lithgow and Topher Grace
Writer: Christopher and Jonathan Nolan

Mike Noyes received his Masters Degree in Film from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. A few of his short films can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/user/mikebnoyes. He recently published his first novel which you can buy here: https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Days-Years-Mike-Noyes-ebook/dp/B07D48NT6B/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528774538&sr=8-1&keywords=seven+days+seven+years