Recently, I discussed this movie with my friend Augustus on our new podcast, Cinemix. However, I also want to post a review on this movie, because it’s kind of underrated and I think it deserves more attention.

Interstellar takes place in the near future, when humanity is undergoing a blight on crops that is essentially killing off the human race. In order to find a new planet for humanity to settle, an ex-pilot named Cooper must travel to a new galaxy with his crew on their ship, the endurance. The plot gets much more complicated as the movie goes on, and I don’t want to spoil it so that’s as much as I’ll say.

Interstellar is not a perfect movie. There are some absolutely incredible moments. One example is when cooper goes to a planet where he only ages by an hour, but everyone else ages by 24 years. When he gets back to ship, he opens 20 years of audio messages from his children and breaks down crying. The acting in this scene is marvelous, and the audience feels like crying. But on the opposite end of the spectrum, another astronaut gives a dumb speech about how “love is quantifiable,” and it makes me question this movie’s script. Interstellar has some dumb moments like these, where it’s ambition is bigger than is good for it, but overall, these don’t detract from the movie.

At the core of Interstellar is the relationship between Cooper and his daughter Murph. He leaves her to go into space and find a new home planet, and on earth, Murph tries to figure out a way to transport the planet’s population to the new home world. Even though these characters don’t see each other for most of their lives, their relationship is very well done, and leads to many emotional moments, that could’ve felt forced in other movies, but thankfully don’t in Interstellar. That’s another thing with this movie that I really like. With a few exceptions (the aforementioned “love is quantifiable” speech,) it never gets ponderous or pretentious, and the emotional moments that it does have, feel very natural. However, not all characters get the sam treatment. Besides Cooper, Murph, and Cooper’s astronaut companion Brand, literally nobody else in this movie is given any characterization. Cooper has a son, who he basically just forgets about, and there are two other astronauts that are killed off, and I can’t even remember their names. You’re telling me, that in an almost three hour long movie, you can’t give a single scene about Wes Bentley’s character before he dies?

This brings me to Interstellar’s biggest problem, and why I think it receives so little attention from general audiences compared to other Christopher Nolan movies. Interstellar is incredibly complicated at times. Not “Primer” levels of complication where you need a flow chart to figure out the plot, but the movie expects you to remember a lot. This isn’t a dumb action movie that you can just sit down and scroll through Instagram while you watch. No, Interstellar tries to be very smart both with its plot and science, and it expects the audience to be paying attention through the entire experience. Plot threads are tossed in left and right, and if you’re not paying attention you might miss a crucial moment. That being said, the movie is in no way boring, and it’s engrossing and not overly hard to pay attention to or follow, but it does expect you to be a very active audience.

Now, I have to talk about the ending of Interstellar, as I am conflicted about it. On one hand, it’s basically the only way to tie the whole experience together. But on the other hand, it’s stretching quite a bit, and can be hard to follow and accept. However, upon thinking about it more, I’ve come to the conclusion that I like it, and it works. In an epic movie of this scope, of course the ending is going to be a little insane. Thankfully, it isn’t like the ending of 2001 and Cooper doesn’t turn into a space-baby or something.

Overall, although it has it’s flaws, interstellar really is criminally under known and underrated. It’s a great movie, and one well worth watching.