Interstellar

2014

USA

Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Written by: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Mackenzie Foy, Michael Caine, Jessica Chastain, Matt Damon, John Lithgow, Ellen Burstyn
Music by: Hans Zimmer
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for some intense perilous action and brief strong language.

Synopsis (by Google):

In Earth's future, a global crop blight and second Dust Bowl are slowly rendering the planet uninhabitable. Professor Brand (Michael Caine), a brilliant NASA physicist, is working on plans to save mankind by transporting Earth's population to a new home via a wormhole. But first, Brand must send former NASA pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and a team of researchers through the wormhole and across the galaxy to find out which of three planets could be mankind's new home. 

My Thoughts:

I wasn't expecting to like this as much as I did. I'm not generally a huge Matthew McConaughey fan; but I do like sci-fi, and the rest of the cast sounded promising, so I took a chance. Glad I did -- it was so entertaining I didn't even mind that it was nearly three hours long. Of course, the "science" of time travel (if it might actually exist) is always going to be a little hard to nail down; everybody has a theory, and this spin was as good as any. And I even liked the idea of combining time travel and ghostly events -- something I thought would be annoying turned out to be very intriguing.

A few other stray thoughts:

• Loved the robots -- very original designs.
• Lots of visual references to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. I suppose that's to be expected, but when does "homage" become "rip-off"?
• Much more entertaining than that other recent sci-fi biggie, Gravity. 
• With her hair chopped off, doesn't Anne Hathaway remind you of the young Liza Minnelli? But not quite as irritating, thank goodness.

My IMDb Rating: 6 stars out of a possible 10