744. Interstellar (2014)

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain

Director: Christopher Nolan

Running Time: 169 mins

Interstellar is an American film about a team of scientists who set out on an interstellar voyage to venture through a wormhole in space and find a new home for mankind on the other side.

Wow. For all of the hype, all of the anticipation, this film is exactly what we all wanted. It’s Nolan scriptwriting at its best, more intriguing than any of his other films, and by far the most emotionally traumatic, which added such a profound second layer to the thrilling and ingenious sci-fi story as well as the unbelievable visuals, making this really stand out as something different from Nolan’s repertoire.

Let’s start with what is by far the most impressive thing about this film, not the special effects, but the screenplay. Who thought that something as incredibly complicated as futuristic space travel and rocket science could be made so entertaining, believable and understandable? Well, this film really pulls it off, creating an amazing mix of 2001-esque comments on human life while having the thrilling qualities of a brilliant box-office blockbuster, meaning that this is something to be enjoyed and revelled in for everyone, from sci-fi geeks to those who just want a good thrill ride.

But it’s not only really exciting, in typical Nolan fashion, it’s just so intelligent. Inception was lauded for its brains and originality, well this surely has to be worshipped for coming up with an incredibly complex and intelligent plot that makes total sense and is completely believable despite its preposterous ideas, which I was hugely impressed by.

And even after that, there’s a great change of form for Jonathan and Christopher Nolan when they make this into an emotionally traumatic story of love and loss, which nearly brought me to tears on numerous occasions, developing further on some of the themes of Inception, but making it so much more effective and hard-hitting.

One other impressive thing about the screenplay is that it gets through the film’s three-hour running time so swiftly and with perfect ease. There’s no way that this feels at all like a three-hour epic, due to its amazingly fast pacing, and consistently thrilling tension that keeps you sitting right on the very edge of your seat at every moment.

Away from the stunning story, there’s also the breathtaking visuals. This is by a long mile the greatest use of special effects I’ve ever seen in a film, creating an amazingly believable universe which transported me across the stars for three hours in an absolutely beautiful masterpiece.

What’s more is that this doesn’t feel too unrealistic. Much like Gravity and Inception, it’s got a very tactile feel to it all, but it goes further by creating these distant worlds that make a much grander scale and really emphasise the importance and gravity of the interstellar mission, which made it absolutely breathtaking to behold.

Overall, this gets an 8.9, due to a stunning story that maintains Nolan’s genius while adding more, as well as strong performances and a beautiful score (which I forgot to mention), coupled with those unbelievable special effects.