"Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here."
Just yesterday I witnessed an unmanned probe land on a comet in our solar system. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. It reaffirms my belief in the ingenuity of man and the wonders of our universe. Going to see Christopher Nolan's new film last night seemed like the natural thing to do on a day like that.
Let it be known that before I discuss this, it is best to see this movie with almost NO knowledge of its plot or concepts. It is something to be discovered and enjoyed as it unfolds.
SPOILERS obviously...
We open on a dusty farm in the United States where a former astronaut named Cooper (matthew mcconaughey) raises his two children in a corn field. We get small tidbits on the state of the planet - no more armies, food supplies are running low, and the crops are slowly dying off. During a terrible dust storm, Coop's prodigy daughter, Murph, notices certain things in her room out of place and discovers a pattern. This leads to coordinates where Coop and his daughter discover the remnants of NASA and a final attempt to launch a rescue mission into space in order to find a planet for humans to colonize. Coop is recruited, much to the dismay of his daughter who begs him to "STAY" - he promises to come back and leaves the farm in the hands of his son.
Here, we are introduced to Nolan's concepts of space travel involving gravity, wormholes and time. Coop's mission is to reconnect with any of ten previous astronauts sent into a newly formed wormhole at the edge of Saturn. What Coop and his team finds is a journey into the unknown, one that can hopefully result in a future for the human race.
Nolan's film is a gorgeous one - definitely worthy of seeing in IMAX. Though not a completely flawless film, it IS a story that I became totally engrossed with and I could not pull myself away from. At the core is Coop's love for his family, and specifically, his daughter. As he travels deeper into space, time becomes relative, and what are hours to him, become decades to the world he left behind. One particular scene is especially haunting and beautiful as Coop watches his children grow up before his eyes as he watches years of messages queued for him during his travels. If you get through it without shedding a tear, then you are made of hard steel.
Replacing the armies of old earth are robots shaped like obelisks (the 2001 reference isn't lost on me here!) who are unlike anything I've seen, yet entirely plausible in their utility and purpose. They are even equipped with human voices, humor, and sarcasm. Nolan infuses a good bit of humor, in fact, into this movie as a whole.
I realize a lot of people will not connect with the hard sci-fi concepts used in this movie. These come into play especially in the final act, but I was never "in over my head" in my opinion. I loved every second of the journey. An emotional and thought-provoking film - dangerously close to taking over the top spot for my favorite of the year.
4.75 out of 5 Khans!!!!
2 comments:
"dangerously close" to being number one?!? i thought this would take the top spot for sure! what other movie is in the running?
I can't decide between this and The Raid 2. Need more time. But either one is a worthy recipient.
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