#Movie #Review: Spider-Man: No Way Home Has Surprises, And A Caring Heart

Great visuals, good villains an okay plot and one, big (if expected) plot twist make Spider-Man: No Way Home the hit of the winter. It drew record pandemic-era crowds to theaters, and took in almost a billion dollars in box office, which is quite amazing.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

Tom Holland does an excellent job as the latest incarnation of Spider-Man in this latest film, which follows his outing as Peter Parker to the world. 

Struggling with the burden of everyone knowing his secret identity, however, is too much emotional baggage for him to bear, and he asks fellow Avenger Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to cast a spell that lets everyone in the world forget that Spider-Man is Peter Parker (with the exception of his closest friends) something that was maliciously revealed about Parker at the end of the previous Spider-Man film, Far From Home (2019.)

The spell actually works too well, drawing in not only several villains from multiple universes, but (and here is the big spoiler, that was ruined by several studio leaks) two previous Spider-Man actors, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire. 

Together, the three Spider-Men tackle the villains in a climactic scene at the Statue of Liberty in New York City. But in a vain attempt to repair the rift in space-time, Doctor Strange is forced to cast a spell that makes even Spider-Man's friends, including his high school girlfriend, played convincingly by the 25-year-old actress Zendaya, forget that Spider-Man is actually Parker.

The post credit scene indicates that Doctor Strange will be continuing his battle against the torn-apart multiverse, which was ruptured by his hasty spell-casting on behalf of Spidey.

The film carries with it a lot of surprises and clever dialogue, as can be expected from a Marvel film. The three actors playing Spider-Man are given a lot of this clever dialogue, and seeing them together is an incredible treat.

The audience cheered when the two actors come through a portal summoned by Strange's magic (but temporarily wielded by Parker's friend, Ned - played by Jacob Batalon.)

Holland doesn't take the easy way out, though, instead insisting on helping the villains create a better life for themselves before being sent back through the portal into their own universes, curing  them of the ills that torment them.

Spider-Man's caring heart for these otherwise irredeemable villains is an incredible message of selflessness playing out on screens.

The only criticism that could be leveled against No Way Home is that perhaps there were too many villains claiming the action. Marvel films are often incredibly crowded to begin with. 

One could mention the disappointing recent Eternals film, which was a bit of a muddled effort because it tried to introduce nine superheroes in one film, with two more in the post-credit scenes.

But no one left the theater upset by this Spider-Man movie. Instead, fans are likely eagerly awaiting what comes next. Strange's adventure is just beginning, and rumor has it that Tobey Maguire may return as Spider-Man from the other universe to perhaps assist Tom Holland once again. I can't wait to see what's next!

#Movie #Review #CryMacho

In 1978, Mike Milo, a onetime rodeo star and washed-up horse breeder (Clint Eastwood)  takes a job from an ex-boss (country singer Dwight Yoakam) to bring the man's young son (Eduardo Minett) home and away from his alcoholic mother (Fernanda Urrejola) who doesn't care much for the boy, other than as a bargaining chip with his father.

Eastwood's character is given the mother's address in Mexico City, and she gives him extremely good instructions on where the boy could be found - in an illegal cock fighting arena - but later she seems upset that he found him.

Crossing rural Mexico on their back way to Texas, the unlikely pair, who often clash, faces a challenging journey, during which the world-weary horseman teaches the boy what it means to be a good man.

Along the way, Eastwood's character finds an unlikely partner in a much younger woman, Marta (Natalia Travern) who runs the cafe in the kind of dusty village Clint Eastwood that always showed up in westerns of old. Marta is a widow who runs the cafe and cares for her three young granddaughters.

I enjoyed the movie on a certain level, but the plot was very slow, and so was 91-year-old Clint, who didn't walk, so much as shuffled, throughout the film, which at times was painful to watch.

His voice was quiet and rapsy, which made it hard to hear his lines sometimes. For his age, he did a serviceable job, but clearly it was a stunt double in that ring with a wild horse he tamed. 

In retrospect, Eastwood, who produced, directed, and starred in the film, should have passed off the acting duties to a younger man in his 60s. I don't want to say he acted poorly in the film, but it wasn't up to his usual high standards.

The boy actor, Minett, has a great future in acting, and so does the rooster, who saved the day and steals the scene more than once!

Fernanda Urrejola, the rather deliciously evil mother here, is starring in the Netflix series Narcos, and acts in both Chile and Mexico.

I tentatively recommend the film, which is based on a 1975 novel of the same name by Richard Nash (who co-wrote the film's screenplay) because of the sweet story, but go into it knowing that something is lacking up on the screen.

#BurntOrangeHeresy #Movie #Review: A Surprising Thriller [Stephen Abbott's blog]

The Burnt Orange Heresy was released in early March, 2020, just as the world (including movie theaters) was shutting down. 

I recently saw it in a second-tier theater on their first day open since the lockdown, with and an enforced 25% occupancy rule which was hardly needed, since I was literally the only one in the theater. 

I was greeted at the door with a girl wearing a face mask squirting my hands with sanitizer. The entire building suffered a brief power failure during the previews. Such was the weirdness of that world.

The film suffered from none of THAT weirdness, but it was spooky and ethereal, nonetheless.

Mick Jagger (yes, THAT one) plays Joseph Cassidy, a wealthy art collector who recruits cynical, bitter, pill-popping art critic James Figueras, played by Danish actor/musician Claes Bang, to come to his palatial estate on Lake Como in Italy to perform an enviable task - to interview a hermit-like, elderly artist, Jerome Debney (played with class by Donald Sutherland) a reclusive painter who hasn't been seen much in recent decades. For that matter, nor has Sutherland, himself. He has another task for him, as well, which he performs at first with reluctance, then with efficiency.

Bang brings his latest fling, Duluth school teacher Bernice Hollis (Paris-born Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki) with him to the Cassidy estate, and she first charms the millionaire and then the artist. 

Conversations between the characters about art and its value are rich and meaningful, with the exquisite background of the Italian countryside providing a lavish visual backdrop for the excellent script. 

Talks between the critic and his lover, and his lover and the elder artist, may seem to drag a bit, but it all adds to an understanding of what is going on, and gives significance to what's about to happen.

The story is adapted from a 1971 novel by Charles Willeford, an American mystery writer who originally set the story in Florida's Everglades. The story as adapted here seems pastoral and calm until the final act, when it turns into a thriller, with characters seeming to act of out character. But are they, really, acting so oddly, or was it, in hindsight, inevitable? 

The opening scene shows Figueras giving a lecture to tourists demonstrating his belief that all art is a lie, and is built on lies. He later tells his new lover that she really doesn't know him. 

That's truly an understatement, as both the critic and the millionaire collector have ulterior motives that, when revealed, have dire consequences. The ending is positively Poe-like in its overtones.

See this when the theaters open up again, or rent and stream it. It's beautifully filmed, acted and scripted. 

Note that this is a film for mature adults (it's rated R) with adult themes and sex scenes. The kids won't know who Jagger or Sutherland are, anyway, so leave them home.

#FirstReformed #Movie #Review: Gloomy Film With #Environmental, #Theological Subtexts [Stephen Abbott's blog]

A review of "First Reformed," by Stephen Abbott

MILD SPOILERS - BUT NOT AS MANY AS ARE IN THE TRAILER!

Director Paul Schrader (who wrote the screenplays for “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” and “Last Temptation of Christ”) writes and directs “First Reformed,” the melancholy tale of Rev. Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) who lives an almost solitary life in a dying church in upstate New York. As he deals with great personal loss, and a loss of faith, his anguish bursts forth into ever-deepening despair.

While the film is already being discussed as an Oscar contender, and it has well-known stars - Cedric “the Entertainer” as a fundamentalist megachurch minister, Amanda Seyfried (“Mamma Mia”, “Veronica Mars,” “Big Love”) and Michael Gaston (“The Mentalist,” “Mad Men”) - it looks more like the Indie film it really is, with a lot of “mood-setting” and scenes that appear ad-libbed, but sadly, probably weren’t.

The long opening foreshadows Toller’s despair, featuring credits in an old-fashioned font, a long shot of the white wood-clad “First Reformed Church,” and overcast skies filled with snow seemingly about to burst forth from the clouds.

The mood, and the script, is assisted by Schrader’s Calvinist upbringing, and as a clergyman in the Reformed church in the film, Pastor Toller would be well acquainted with the dour view of human nature I think plays a part in his unraveling.

The story opens in the church, where Hawke’s Toller is going through the motions. The nearly-dead church is a 250-year-old relic about to be “re-consecrated” in a ceremony run by the building’s owners, a large fundamentalist megachurch down the street run by Cedric (Pastor Jeffers) who has brought Toller in to manage the church after Toller, a former military chaplain, suffered a tragedy and a divorce that’s sent him on a downward spiral of despair.

Toller has begun to write a year-long diary, a “form of prayer” he narrates for us throughout the film. This helps us focus on his mindset, and Schrader was right to include it, at the risk of accusations that he is plagiarizing earlier films using the same trope, because it's effective here.

The sparsely-attended, broken down Dutch Reformed Church – owned by, and serving as an appendage of, the megachurch down the road - serves as a painful and true-to-life reminder of many mainline churches that can’t keep their doors open due to dwindling membersship.  Again, Schrader nails this, because he likely lived it, first-hand, and I believe there’s no way this portrayal is accidental.

That even Toller can no longer bring himself to pray to God, and is losing faith in his bleak theology, is painfully portrayed in every frame of the film. It’s a crisis of faith in slow motion.

Toller offers to visit the fiancé of a parishioner who’s worried about her partner’s state of mind. The woman, Mary, is pregnant by the man, Michael (thank God, the character is not named Joseph!) before they have been married, but presumably after consummation.

Mary is disturbed by Michael’s growing environmental extremism. They meet, and Michael tells Toller of his obsession with the future of the planet, which he believes is doomed due to mankind’s destruction of the environment, a view encouraged when he looks up gloomy stats on websites and is reinforced by the photos of starving polar bears on the wall. He admits coyly to pressuring Mary to have an abortion, because he fears bringing a child into such a world.

Toller unconvincingly (and we know this, because of later events) encourages Michael not to give up on humanity, though his narration betrays his inner torment.

We see that Toller is the one convinced, however – rather quickly –  to take up Michael’s cause. And, after Michael is out of the picture (I’ll hide much of what’s to come from this point on) he toys with doing so in a rather radical way.

I’ll add here that as a mainline preacher, he would likely have already shared much of Michael’s environmental worldview, though it’s portrayed here as a new revelation, with Toller poring over conspiracy theory websites and papers, featuring ever more dire discoveries.

But scary rhetoric about a bleak future can backfire badly, and the film, perhaps unintentionally, shows that fear-based, alarmists tactics can lead to paranoia and extremism, rather than hope. Clearly, not what Schrader had in mind.

If there’s a religious subtext in the film, unintentional or not, it’s that mainline Christianity has, in some cases, substituted environmental activism in place of its negative theological worldview. In a real Reformed church, Michael would have been invited by Toller to teach a class or lead a church-wide protest march. But that would likely have saved Michael, and perhaps even have helped redeem Toller – an ending too positive for this film’s protagonist, and its theme.

Instead, the film’s third act is its most bleak, and most soul-crushing. The pace noticeably quickens, as Toller’s life unravels before our eyes, and his religious doubt turns to clarity in his new mission.

A fantasy "flying" scene at this point takes all reality out of the film, however, and reminds us that, “Yes, this is an Indie film.” It's a shame Schrader did this, just because he could. It adds little, and sacrifices much.

An all-too-convenient villain appears, which gives Toller the idea to perhaps become a martyr to his new environmental cause. But at the last minute, his plan changes, and in anguish, he graphically, pathetically, wraps himself in a mere symbol of martyrdom.

The film could have ended several different ways, and the ending Schrader chose is extremely hard to watch. He would have been forgiven for ending it with a fulfilled mission for Toller, perhaps with him first calling away the person he wished to save.

Or, if he had chosen to be heavy-handed, he could have had Toller resign, and announce that he’d spend the rest of his days fighting pollution. Instead, the “Sopranos-like” ending leaves audiences adrift, though the film really may have ended 30 seconds before it actually did.

My theory is that the "cup" did not pass from him, and the very last moments are a dream sequence. You’ll see what I mean.

#OurBrandIsCrisis #Movie #Review: Great Fun & Insight Into Political Consulting

(This contains *minor* SPOILERS, even though I was careful)

Well, I just saw "Our Brand Is Crisis" (how could I not see it, it's about political consulting, which is what I do!) and it was as good and as bad as I thought it would be. Good, because it does indeed show how political campaigns are run, for the most part, but bad because it has a stupid, but predictable, ending, and a Left-leaning bias throughout - which I guessed correctly was coming and simply chose to discount in my judgment of the film.

The film is based on, and takes its name directly from, a 2005 documentary about the 2002 election in Bolivia, in which a former president won the election with the help of an American firm led by legendary consultant James Carville. Billy Bob Thornton in the film resembles Carville in appearance, but here works for the opposition candidate.

Sandra Bullock starts off the film having left the profession of political consulting because of a bad event we learn about later. Personal scumbag Billy Bob Thornton - who plays one in the film, too – is her capable adversary. Both are running presidential campaigns in Bolivia.

Here's what rings true: the professional rivalries between consultants (who, nonetheless can be civil to one another) the scenes of actual campaigning, the strategies, families being divided by politics, the stress of campaigns, the fun people have during them anyway, the candidate who doesn't listen to his consultants, the backroom intrigue, and the dirty tricks.

What's silly is the whining about money in politics (in the intro only, don’t worry) and the fact that someone who’s been in the business doesn't seems to know that people are mean or that politicians do, in fact, lie.

Some of Bullock's lines are hilarious. How she pulls one over on the Thornton character before a big debate is brilliant. How she pulls back and listens in the beginning (though admittedly, she was ill) is exactly how one SHOULD start off a campaign before crafting and announcing a strategy. And the need to sometimes change strategies in mid-campaign is also well illustrated here.

The scene where the two candidate's buses happen to be on the same road, leading to a hilarious "backside" joke, is just the kind of stunt campaigns pull on each other, and there are several "dirty tricks" shown as well that are MORE than plausible.

Bullock’s character, "Calamity Jane," shouldn't be as surprised and alienated by the process as is depicted here, given her long history in the profession. But in films about political consulting – like the excellent 1986 Richard Gere/Denzel Washington film "Power" which this resembles in many ways, and which I highly recommend – sermonizing about how bad things can get and what's wrong with politics and managing campaigns is typical, and expected. 

But still, they manage to get a lot right, and it’s nicely entertaining even if you aren't a political consultant, so I recommend it.

#Tomorrowland #Movie Review: Magical Visuals, Marred by Violence, Plot Holes & Absurdities

(This contains MAJOR Spoilers! Be Warned!)

In Disney's Tomorrowland, three police officers are shot and killed in cold blood. The fact that it's done by robots (and death rays, which vaporizes them) doesn't make it any more acceptable.

Which is sad, because I'd been VERY MUCH looking forward to this film for weeks, and it disappointed.

Some good first: The young actresses here are wonderful. We'll be seeing a lot more of both Britt Robertson (Casey Newton) and Raffey Cassidy (Athena.)

My opinion of Hugh Laurie (David Nix) is colored by his amazing role as the lead character on House, MD, but in truth his acting was only fair, and I believe any actor – known or unknown – could have better played Frank Walker, portrayed by George Clooney, who was wooden and whose role was poorly written.

The first act is magical, and spectacular. The discovery of the pin and the wonderful place it exposes is amazing. The visuals are captivating – and this is what appeared in the previews. The nostalgic and accurate-feeling 1964 World's Fair was beautifully rendered and Frank's youthful wonder (played sufficiently by Thomas Robinson) pours forth from the screen.

And then the film goes haywire.

For starters, the film's science is absurd, and the way they eventually get to Tomorrowland is even more absurd (no, it's not a bathtub, as hinted at in the TV ads, nor the devise that takes them to Paris, which could have simply beamed them to Tomorrowland!)

Instead, we get numerous plot holes and absurdities that destroy even the internal logic of the film.

Just a few of the mind-numbing number of unanswered questions and plot holes:

For WHOM is the negative/realistic Frank Walker and the optimistic Casey recording the video in the opener? And why is he so negative? Clearly he can't be negative after the events of the film have unfolded, because everything seemingly worked out and new animatronic children are being sent out to revive Tomorrowland. But if it's filmed beforehand, why is he recording a video at all, and again, FOR WHOM?

What has Tomorrowland ever done for the world? That seriously is never addressed. That's why I thought we were getting this movie. It never materialized. We learn instead that a rather bleak looking Tomorrowland now exists, and probably existed like that when Frank was expelled when he was a teenager (in the early 1970s?) So what has it ever done for humanity to warrant its existence?

If, in 1964, a friendly robot device existed that could create bridges in the sky (and fix Frank's jet pack early in the film) why wasn't such a device sent to earth to repair and build roads and sky-bridges HERE? The sad answer lies in the same depressing conclusion: Tomorrowland has helped no one. Ever.

Why have the robots kill ANYONE if the world was ending in a month or so, anyway? Didn't they get the memo?

If Gov. Nix could have expelled Frank to a deserted island (where he would have died in a few years) using that transporter device, then why didn't he do that years ago, instead of putting him in a house and using the threat of killer robots to pacify him?

Tomorrowland was clearly being built in the 1960s. So HOW and WHY was the Eifel Tower being constructed in the 1880s as an inter- dimensional ship? And WHERE was it going, exactly? This ship's very existence is completely illogical and seemingly exists only to insert a bit of cool-looking Steampunk into the film.

If Nix could see the future, surely he could have seen his own demise, and Frank's return?

The moment when Casey has the revelation, standing in front of the portal to the island, I thought INSTANTLY that this film would make a wonderful U-turn, giving Nix and Tomorrowland a chance to redeem themselves. If spreading gloom and doom about humanity's problems doesn't work (and we see it NOT WORKINqG all around us) why don't they simply change the message of what's being sent out to the earth? But "destroy the array" is the answer, leading to two deaths almost instantly. What a way to end the film on a downer, making the later 'new army' of robot recruiters a poor "Plan B."

Finally, how did the 30-odd-day "end of the world" get fixed, by Casey wishing it away? By her positive energy? That's magic, not science. That someone has Midichlorians that can affect the universe is from another franchise, even if Disney DOES now own it.

Overall, the film's second and third acts are a huge disappointment, marred by unnecessary violence and numerous absurdities. Which is a shame, since the film could have shown the world being positively affected by those working together in harmony to build a better future. THAT was Disney's vision, after all, not just one more stupid movie-themed ride at the parks' Tomorrowlands.

This review appears on IMDB.com here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1964418/reviews-271

"Age of Adaline" #Movie #Review: Ageless Film Hampered By Invasive Narration

(Minor Spoilers, though I'm careful here!)

So, I saw "Age of Adaline" Friday. It was very good, but not perfect. A bit of a chick flick, but the subject, extreme longevity without aging, is something I've written about in my flash fiction.

(Yes, this review definitely contains spoilers!)

Any fan of the show "Forever" or perhaps even the 90s show "Forever Knight" or the Twilight series will understand the concept of extreme longevity explored here, and I'm a very big fan of both those shows and the concept, so I was eager to see this.

Blake Lively was amazing as Adaline, and Harrison Ford performed well, too, in all his flustered brilliance. His character here has great depth, as I think only he could pull off.

In a minor but amazing role, newcomer Anthony Ingruber plays Ford in a flashback as a youth and just NAILS his looks and mannerisms (which he's actually done for years on YouTube before being discovered by the director!)

In Ford's great film "Blade Runner," the original, theater release had a voice-over, which was later cut by the director on DVDs. There, it was an under-appreciated homage to 1940s Film Noir movies. In Age of Adaline, however, the ever-present narration seems pointless at best, demeaning and overly expository at worst. And while it may have seemed necessary to fill out the story's scientific details, it's often talking down to the audience in a way that's unnecessary. Verbal exposition often took the place of something that would have been better acted. And everyone who saw the previews already knew she lived a long time. It should be cut in the DVD.

That said, the story progresses well, though I wished for more flashbacks and more rye indications that she had acquired vast knowledge of her hometown - elements that add charm and a bit of humor. A date at an old movie theater, for example, was a charming scene.

It's beautifully filmed, and Lively's wardrobe is a painful reminder that women used to dress elegantly in their daily lives. I wish they still did (Adaline never gave up dressing well for 100 years and it added to Lively's already stunning looks.) I could have done without the pet storyline, but only because it struck a personal chord, as it will for any pet owner. It illustrated her sense of loss quite beautifully, and asked, without actually asking: How would it feel if everyone you had ever known had died, decades ago, and you were afraid to get close to, or even date anyone, as a consequence? Great post-date or dorm room discussion material here!

Very few flaws or goofs to note here. Some include: Why did Ford's character need that photo - it didn't prove anything. She seems to remember an event in 1906 but she wasn't even born until 1908. Why did she keep going back to that same city, where she would risk being recognized by people just 25 years older than she had been on a previous sojourn there? And wait - wouldn't her new man be grossed out knowing what he finally learned about the Ford character, to whom he was RELATED?

The very end (comet) is deeply flawed and confusing, leaving the audience with a big "huh?" (I suspect that a 2031 scene was cut, or was never filmed) and the narration during the "accident" before it that changes her physical situation is again unnecessary. It's as if people are so dumb they'd miss what was happening.

Overall, a worthy film about an interesting topic, filmed beautifully. Go see this!

#Review: Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar": Love is NOT the Answer (to Space Travel)

SPOILERS!!

I've been eagerly awaiting “Interstellar” for months and it really did live up to my expectations.

Christopher Nolan’s film, starring a stellar cast and breathtaking visuals, stands up very well as a Sci-Fi epic and is very entertaining. It will also make you question whether the human race is ready for interstellar travel, because these characters clearly are not. The film also enters some pretty strange realms of time, space and metaphysics, and even touches on that vast, unknowable emotion called love, and does all these things in an often clunky way.

The story (SPOILERS AHEAD, I meant it!) is this: in the near future (perhaps 25 years from now) humanity, presented here only by what’s going on in the USA, is suffering from massive droughts and dust bowl-like conditions that are causing all crops except corn to fail. And corn is about to fail, too. The population of the earth has fallen dramatically and the earth is basically dying. We need a new home out among the stars.

Matthew McConaughey is an engineer in a world where there is no need for engineers, so he’s a farmer dealing with all this misery. He has two kids. His son plays a minor role but his super-intelligent daughter plays a key role, and in fact, must be played by three actresses across generations.

And no, McConaughey does not drive a Lincoln in the film, as he does in his now-famous and extremely odd TV commercials. He drives a very old 2014 Dodge Ram pickup truck.

The film features the struggles on earth, intercut with danger and duplicity on distant planets, and the stars include an Affleck, a Damon, a Caine, and a former Spiderman, among many other big names rounded up by Nolan.

The first half of the movie basically sets all of this up, and it’s extremely bleak and horrifyingly believable. Leaving aside the CAUSE of all this misery – assumed to be a man-made event – the nation’s economic priorities have also changed. No more military (only because it’s no longer affordable) and no more space program. In fact, textbooks that are “government-corrected” – apparently by Oliver Stone – make it clear that we never even went to the moon, and that the faked lunar landings were only a ruse to bankrupt the Soviets.

But things get weird fast when a gravitational anomaly in his house leads McConaughey’s character to a secret government facility that turns out to be NASA’s new home. He’s quickly recruited to pilot a ship and crew, complete with robots, to a black hole/wormhole that’s mysteriously appeared near Saturn – put there by a “they” that is at first undefined.

I use the word “quickly” with great trepidation, because it takes these characters years to just get to Saturn in this film and it feels like it takes hours in the theater, too. WARNING: This film soars to nearly three hours in length. It feels like five. Discrete cutting could have brought it down to two, easily.

On the “other side” of the wormhole, they’re in another galaxy, and must explore three planets that have been deemed possibly inhabitable by humans – new homes for the starving millions, or (a Plan B) to repopulate with genetic material the astronauts brought with them.

For the sake of the audience, astronauts approaching the black hole are portrayed explaining how time can bend in an Einsteinian sense. This is something they surely would already know, and many other points seem pedantic and even silly. Some of the dialogue here seems like it could have been cut, leaving less-informed viewers to go to Wikipedia for scientific explanations.

2001: A Space Odyssey, to which this film could easily be compared in many respects (including some trippy wormhole scenes and the "HAL-like" robots, who luckily don't go insane) shows that constant chatter is unnecessary to show the majesty and vastness of space.

The remarkable Hans Zimmer's music added a lot to the effect of the film and gave it a “2001” feeling. He also composed music for Nolan’s “Inception,” which this film in some ways resembles. The musical score was too loud in places and covered some dialogue at the end.

Back to the plot, three explorers have managed to get messages out to earth, and exploring one of the planets – a water world (a type of planet which does exist and is extremely plausible) – that unfortunately lies too close to the black hole and causes time to run 1/7th slower. This has a devastating effect on the crew and incidentally demonstrates why such long-distance travel would be very difficult for humans.

Some ludicrous and unscientific points here include escaping the event horizon of a black hole by using rocket engines, and then “shedding the weight” of part of the ship. Huh? And the fact that “love” is the key to part of the solution, as elucidated by the love-addled Anne Hathaway, who is smitten with one of the male explorers who has gone to explore one of the promising planets. The idea that Love should color the decision to explore one planet instead of another is rightly shot down by McConauhey’s character. I immediately thought I was watching a sequel to “The Fifth Element.”

Instead, there are five dimensions here, and the final third of the film explores just how this can be and who is behind all of it, and it’s here that the film because incredibly surreal, and no description can be given without ruining the “surprise.” It IS science fiction, after all, and it lives up to the Fiction element as well as the Science portion.

Beautifully filmed, awesome in scope, I recommend Interstellar, but prepare for a long haul into these distant galaxies and back again.

Official movie site: https://interstellar.withgoogle.com/
This review on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/reviews-2399