Humans reach for their future in the stars in Interstellar

In his year-long run of talked-about roles, Matthew McConaughey finds himself now in space in the big budget Interstellar. Taking place sometime in the near future, humankind is struggling. A new bug or virus called “the blight” is eating our crops one by one. It grows through nitrogen, which is most of what our atmosphere is made up of, so there is no stopping it. Society has broken down as nearly all able bodied people worldwide have become farmers in hopes of making just enough food to eke out an existence. A last ditch effort by NASA is exploring leaving Earth and moving to a new planet.

I really can’t give more details than that. As with previous films directed by Christopher Nolan, the reveal of surprising plot elements along the way is what makes the film. As McConaughey and sidekick Anne Hathaway explore space, life on earth continues to grow more grim, and there is a definite race-against-time urgency for the explorers to find a new home before everyone back home is dead.

This is Nolan’s first non-Batman film since 2010’s Inception. I’m a big Nolan fan; Inception, Memento, and The Prestige are all favorites of mine, as well as his Batman films of course. Like those films, Interstellar again tries to blow your mind, and it mostly succeeds, on an even larger, more epic scale that previous films. However, if you are a die-hard sci-fi fan, a lot of the material has a “been there” kind of feel. I’m sure Interstellar will make a ton of movie to offset its massive $165 million budget, and it is a good, exciting film, but I just didn’t get the “wow” factor at the end.