'Interstellar' fails to launch
Interstellar explores several issues related to mankind using both the past and the future as its milieu, Interstellar takes interviews from people who experienced the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and projects them to a time when single crop monocultures are being wiped out by the blight creating a whole new Dust Bowl that threatens to wipeout mankind.
Anne Hathaway lights up the screen with her old-time movie star persona. She is a bright light in a cast of big names that surprised including Matt Damon, Topher Grace, Michael Caine, and John Lithgow. Matthew McConaughey and his finger rolling as seen in recent car commercials take the lead role. The story is built on the relationship between a father and daughter, but it doesn’t work on that level. There just isn’t enough time spent on development of that relationship, nor on dealing with the feelings that come from the abandonment of family. The hook is supposed to be there to help the audience feel for the story, but there is no barb to keep viewers on the line. The paradox of mankind is that individuals can be great and evil. People are their own gods and devils, and when someone claims that it is for the good of everyone, oftentimes, the action is only for personal glory. True sacrifice is difficult to find. Even with its great visuals and robots that do not look like humans, Interstellar is merely a perpetuation of the idea that mankind will be able to save itself when the times become desperate enough. The problem is that the god in this machine is dependent on a recurrent loop that strains the suspension of disbelief to the breaking point. While there are plenty of WTF moments and nods to The Twilight Zone, Contact and Gravity, Christopher Nolan didn’t have the guts to leave all of the extraneous material and the happy ending on the editing room floor. |
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