Stars: 4.5 out of 5

Space. It is vast and infinite. The beauty and mystery that surround it have left humanity fascinated.

While space travel has found itself in a standstill as of late, humans still express their curiosity through the realm of fiction. Through fiction, what seems impossible becomes a reality and we find ourselves constantly yearning for more.

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“Interstellar” (PG-13; 169 min) is a modern day science fiction masterpiece.

“Interstellar” is a sci-fi film directed by Christopher Nolan and stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain and Michael Caine.

Planet earth is dying. The human race is running out of options no matter how hard they try to find a solution. Soon, their food supply will evaporate and the air will begin to suffocate them. The extinction of life on earth is a real threat.

A former pilot and engineer, now turned farmer named Cooper, played by McConaughey, is asked to help save the human race. Him and a team of scientists will take a space craft through a wormhole near Saturn and find another inhabitable planet. The mission is beyond dangerous, and the chances of them returning are very slim. With survival on the line the team will do all they can to ensure the human race lives on.

Nolan stated in interviews about this film that it was heavily inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” This is evident right from the beginning of the movie, both in style and scale.

“Interstellar” is epic. It is grand, it is glorious and it is any other synonym for epic that you can think of. It is sad that this word gets thrown around a lot when talking about film. Every movie tries to portray a level of grandeur that few actually reach. When every film is epic, the meaning of the word is lost.

To say space is presented as vast and infinite may sound a little redundant It has even been said once in this article already. This movie shows the immenseness of space in a way completely different from modern sci-fi films. It is interesting, beautiful and frightening like it once was.

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The differences between its modern day counterparts make this movie a head of the rest. Even a series like “Star Trek” that was once about the exploration of space, has been delegated to the hybrid genre of Sci-Fi action. Big computer generated imagery spaceship battles take precedent over story and character development.

This world is encased in realism. While it is set significantly in the future, the battles are not between aliens and humans. Things like the relativity of time on earth in comparison to the different planets and running out of resources are the big mountains the characters have to climb over.

This film is smart and does not talk down to its audience. It is never bogged down or hard to follow, even with NASA jargon seemingly being thrown out left and right. Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, who both wrote the film, are experts at making expository dialogue in a movie realistic.

One major difference between “Interstellar” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” is that at its core, “Intersellar” has some fantastic character driven moments. This is a little odd, being that Nolan is usually just as cold and sterile as Kubrick was. This movie will bring you to tears just as fast as it makes you question metaphysics.

This comes a lot from the writing and from the performance of a terrific cast. McConaughy brings another Oscar-worthy performance. The relationship between him and his family, even when in space, is spell binding.

These types of sci-fi films do not come around often. The sci-fi action film tends to do a lot better at the box office than an intellectual piece. One can only hope that a brilliant piece like this will hit audiences later and make them realize what they missed out on.