Interstellar (2014)

Set sometime in an unspecified future, the Earth is dying. No longer able to sustain life, a secret NASA group has sent several manned spacecraft to find inhabitable worlds in another galaxy by going through a wormhole. With time rapidly running out, the latest and most ambitious voyage is set in motion. This aggressive space epic may be Christopher Nolan's best film, I'll have to give a rewatch to INCEPTION before I make up my mind. Pushing the three hour mark, it's clear that Nolan intended this to be a profound cinematic experience on the level of a 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY. It's not, it doesn't even quite reach the heights of last year's GRAVITY. That isn't meant as a dismissal, this is a very good film and definitely worth seeing. But Nolan crams the film with scientific gobbledygook, speeches about love and mankind, generous doses of sentiment (both sincere and twaddle) all accompanied by Hans Zimmer's bombastic underscore so that one is overwhelmed! It's not a film where acting matters much but the performances are excellent right down the line, notably Matt Damon as an unbalanced astronaut and Jessica Chastain as Matthew McConaughey's grown up daughter. It's a sensational looking and sounding film. Also in the cast: Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow, Casey Affleck, West Bentley, Topher Grace, Brooke Smith, William Devane, David Oyelowo and Marlon Sanders.