Everyone keeps suggesting there is a paradox concerning the 5D future humans and their ability to save humanity in the past. It's really not a paradox at all. Everyone assumes humanity survived to ascend to the 5th dimension but how could humanity exist in the future if not for the actions of Cooper.. who was guided by future humans (begin endless loop).

Did anyone ever consider the other important character in the movie? Amelia Brand carried on with the rest of her mission (thanks to Cooper). I postulate that Brand used the human seeds as intended and set up a colony. A colony that would thrive and eventually evolve beyond human. Thus Earth is of little importance, and may have indeed died. These colonists, and the generations that followed, would have been told the story of a great man (Cooper) who saved them from extinction. With the ability to manipulate space-time, they would pay homage to their hero "God" by helping him in the past so he may fulfill the mission most important to him, to once again see his daughter. Plan B worked beautifully. But the 5d humans, having the power to bend space-time, decided there's no reason why Plan A had to fail.

That this movie, at the time of writing this, holds an 8.8 rating at IMDb is simply beyond my understanding. Needless to say I did not really like this movie. The story is not very good, the science is ludicrous and the visuals not all that impressive. Maybe the latter would be better in a big theater (I watched this on my home cinema system which has a relatively large screen by European standards) but I am not really sure about that either.

Be warned that the rest of this review might contain a spoiler or two.

The movie starts of with the usual “I told you so” wet dream of the green fanatics on a dying Earth so it is off to a depressing start right away. That is an overused concept today as far as I am concerned. Then they pour it on with a school official claiming that he Apollo missions and moon landings never happened. What the f…? If they wanted to depress the audience right from the start they succeeded, at least with this audience.

The story proceeds with our heroes finding these gravity waves in the sand and by a huge stretch of imagination decrypts them to mean coordinates which leads them to the secret NASA base. Once there Cooper is told that he is their best choice of pilot for a “save the human race” mission through a wormhole. Yeah, right! This guy was former NASA. His whereabouts could hardly been unknown to them. If he was their best choice why would they entrust a mission to save the human race to someone else until he stumbled onto their door? Typical Hollywood nonsense!

The movie is full of this kind of rubbish. Romilly wastes 23 years of his life doing pretty much nothing except deciding not to go into the sleep capsule. The supposedly highly trained and vetted professor that they do find turns out to be a psychopath as well as and idiot almost blowing up the ship when trying to proceed with a docking that all the systems tells him have not succeeded. Then they proceed to dock with the main ship and stop its spin as well as bring it out of orbit around a planet with the shuttles engines. That is one hell of a powerful shuttle not to mention the strength of the docking mechanism! This just goes on. When someone is not doing something illogical or stupid (or both) they sit around talking, philosophizing and dragging the movie forward at snails pace. 169 minutes is way too much for this movie.

The movie ends up in one big time travel mess (okay they do not travel in time, just sends messages through time but still…) during a bunch of psychedelic scenes while traveling through the back hole. Science? Not so much. And what about this totally ludicrous massively illogical and inefficient robot design?

The one good thing I can say about this movie is that the performance of most of the actors, especially Matthew McConaughey, are quite good. For the rest, not my cup of tea.

This movie is OK at best. It's one of Nolan's better ones at least. But, it has some serious issues. See Krauss talk about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pG89gREWyI&t=1m12s

It's too long - he's right. The oxygen blight is completely scientifically silly. The entire basis of the plot (that Earth will run out of oxygen in tens of years) is unbelievable. This put me off from the start. There's some "formula" that Michael Caine worked on and half-solved, but it took data from the event horizon of a black hole (which also makes no sense scientifically) to solve it. Sorry, if you approach a black hole, you don't end up behind a bookshelf in your old house in the past - I have no idea how they can claim this is a movie about science. It is FULL of religious symbolism, though, so if you're into that, you'll be right at home. Apparently humans evolve out of the 3rd dimension too ... sure. There's one thing that was definitely right - outer space is quiet - FINALLY.

The cinematography is pretty good, and I liked how the dude went crazy on the barren planet, but this film would have been a lot better without the sappy happy ending. I mean, really - transporting all the way back from inside a black hole? Armageddon had a much more realistic ending than that, and it was SO STUPID! It would be great if someone fan-edited this into something scientifically accurate (dub over the lines about what's wrong with Earth replacing it with a feasible problem, have him crushed to death in the black hole, show Brand on the planet at the end all alone, FIN). I don't know how people can give this a higher rating than a 7/10. I wouldn't consider it to be a classic at all. It's at best a see-once blockbuster, just like Armageddon was.

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar may very well be one of the best movies that have come out in the year of 2014.

The film starts off by more or less depicting what the near future Earth looks like. Much like in the movie The Martian all the technology looks futuristic, but it always seems like it could already exist today, if only as a prototype. The directors manage quite well to bring across the massive problems and the looming threat of extinction the human race faces by simply showing us the daily life of ex-pilot, engineer and now farmer Cooper and the problems he faces. We see the distant crops burning away, giving us a sense of the increasing scarcity of food, as crop after crop is being destroyed by the blight and only corn can survive. We see the plates being turned down on the table, as the dust has become omnipresent. We see the shift of society, as the teachers of Cooper's misbehaving daughter try to convince him that the Apollo mission did in fact not happen and they make it quite plain that in this society no engineers, astronauts or scientists are needed, but farmers, and that is what he should teach his children to be. Not only does this set up the world quite perfectly, we also get characterizing moments. Cooper, as the film quite often states, is out of place in this world. He looks skywards, whilst the rest looks at the dust and earth below them. The shared moments with his children show his love and affection for both of them, he respects their interests and treads them accordingly. The seemingly paranormal sightings also characterize our second main character at an early stage, Murph. She quite literally follows his footsteps and adopts the scientific ways, she is curious, intelligent and more than anything stubborn. The family grows on you amazingly quickly and his farewell scenes are made all the more hurtful.

It is here that I would already like to mention Nolan's attention to detail and love of practical effects. He literally bought acres of corns to avoid CGI as much as possible for just a few scenes. Whenever CGI is used, and of course in a movie mainly taking place in space there has to be a lot of it, it could just as well be practical effects, by all you know, if only some of it wouldn't be possible. The visual effects are simply stunning and most importantly not noticeable.

As we are being shot into space with Cooper, we run into a few minor problems Interstellar has. After he stumbles onto the secret NASA facility, giving us another glimpse at the world building, that may not be complex but it certainly gives us the illusion of complexity, he gets to pilot a spacecraft in space without getting into shape or ready for space in any way. Having arrived on the space station, the movie struggles to find ways to explain the complex science behind what they are trying to do and so they resort to a scientist explaining the concept of wormholes (exactly the way the teacher did it to the kids in Stranger Things by poking a hole into a sheet of paper) to another scientist. The same happens again later in the movie when the same guy explains to Cooper that time is relative. Nevertheless, even if the exposition may at times be wonky, the actual use and depiction of science is spot-on and nothing like I've ever seen in another movie on such an...interstellar scale. The plot and premise of Interstellar is so unique and amazing precisely because it explores the unexplored aspects of physics, like the concept of wormholes and black holes, and just rolls with it. Every scene in space or another planet looks fantastic and the sheer size of everything, whether it's the massive tidal waves caused by the black hole, the vast ice desert or the black hole itself, really makes you feel helpless and small, whilst still being overtaken by its beauty.

Probably the most emotional scene of the entire two hours is established using the previously mentioned relativity of time. After spending unintended three hours on the black hole-orbiting planet, they return to their station, to their colleague, realizing that decades have past. We are now forced to watch Cooper sit there and have to undergo decades worth of emotions in a few minutes, as the computer displays all the messages his family had sent over the years. It was truly a test for the wonderful actor and if you haven't felt for the protagonist, who more or less carries the movie along with Murph, before you certainly have after this scene. The other side-characters do indeed feel a bit one-sided and unexplored, but that's okay, it's not their story and you always realize the stakes for every character, adding weight to every decision they make. The comic-relief, a robot names TARS with a humour setting of 75 - 100%, is surprisingly likeable and funny, adding the much needed light-hardheartedness.

Parts of the movies do eventually get a bit silly and some scenes feel out of place, like when Dr. Brand talks about love being the only thing that can travel through dimensions next to gravity and two scientists fist-fighting in another galaxy on another planet. The plot concerning Dr. Mann was fine and a murder attempt does actually fit, but the fist-fight was unnecessarily ridiculous.

Following this, however, we get to the most thrilling scene of the entire movie. The spacecraft trying to dock a space station, spinning out of control, by spinning with it. It's here that I would like to mention two things: the score and the lack of sound. You don't see many movies taking place in space that actually show the lack of sound in space and even fewer that use it as a way of instilling fear in us, fear of the vast emptiness and apathy of space. Then, the score. I know a few people that get annoyed by Hanz Zimmer's style of music but many more absolutely ravel in it, as do I. The soundtrack is most of the time idle and you can feel the stellar, spacey aspects of it but when needed it erupts into what you imagine a burst of creativity must sound like. On top of that he brilliants made most of the beats hit every single second, imitating a clock, since time is the main aspect of the movie. Sometimes, in fact, he even uses a clock for his music.

At last, the movie ends with Cooper meeting his dying daughter, creating an arguably even more emotional scene, before eventually ending the film on an optimistic note, leaving you with tons of emotions inside and probably only noticing now that you have to pee, because you had been glued to the screen for the entire time.

A cinematic masterpiece and benchmark for movies to come.

In "Interstellar", a film written and directed by Christopher Nolan,
climate change has decimated most of the world's food supplies.
Towns are regularly ravaged by fierce sand storms, and
everything is covered with thick layers of dust.

A very select group of scientists set out to embark
on humanities most ambitious mission: travel through
a newly discovered wormhole into another galaxy.
They hope of collecting the necessary data to either move
many people onto a new experimental gravitation spaceship, or find a new Earth altogether.

I have now watched this movie twice at an IMAX.
After my first viewing, when the credits rolled,
I sat there perplexed and was unable to move. I was paralysed
by what I had seen. I looked around, I was not the only one.
Unquestionably, one of the greatest movies I had ever seen.
I was almost ashamed to admit it, because it felt like I had no
say in this decision whatsoever.
There are many moments when "Interstellar" transcends into
something so artistic, you are left speechless and are moved to tears.

The cinematography and directing is, even by Nolan's standards,
his best work so far. I think his talent is even too profound for
the Academy of Motion Pictures, hence why he has yet to receive an oscar
for directing. Personally, after watching "Interstellar", I consider
him to be the best director that is currently alive, only rivalled
by Kubrick and Hitchcock.

Hans Zimmer wrote the score and I really recommend to read how
he translated Nolan's fantastic ideas into music.
I get goosebumps just thinking about the high-speed docking scene,
and you will, too! The sound engineers did an amazing job contrasting
the cosmic silence with Zimmer's incredibly ethereal music.
During the rocket launch, the entire theatre shook and you were
really feeling the thrust.

If I was forced to describe the score, I would say it was
heavily influenced by Johann Strauß, Philip Glass and Bach.
Truly a masterpiece that deserves to be revisited many times and
among all the great soundtracks he has ever done, this is simply
on an entirely different level. His most intimate work.

The visual effects were breathtaking - quite literally.
The on-screen silence during certain parts of the movie
was only rivalled by the complete and utter silence
of my fellow IMAX watchers. Nobody said a word, nobody moved.
Just hundreds of mesmerized people staring at the screen,
or digging their fingers into their armrests during
some of the most tense moments I have ever seen.

"Interstellar" depicts astrophysical concepts that
have never been seen or discussed on-screen before.
"Awesome", in its most literal sense, really describes it.

When I set out to write this review, I really tried to
avoid superlatives, and give you a more nuanced opinion
of why I think this movie deserves to be ranked among
the best, but I now see how I have failed.

I recommend to watch "Interstellar" at an IMAX,
or the best movie theatre around you.
It's not something you should rent at a Red Box or watch on Netflix.

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light." -Dylan Thomas