The Matthew McConoughey renaissance continues!

Interstellar is definitely a movie to see on the biggest screen available. If you can find an IMAX still showing it, by all means, see this movie on the IMAX, and in 70mm if possible. You will not regret it. But if you watching Interstellar at home, please do yourself a favor and watch it on the biggest TV you can find. If you own a 40” and your friend owns a 70”, maybe it’s time to pay that friend a visit. Treat that friend to a Redbox night and spring for a box of microwavable popcorn while you’re at it. Side note: I wonder how many times owners of bigger than big screen TVs are having to sit through yet another viewing of Interstellar thanks to yet another friend who owns a small TV.

I feel like Matthew McConaughey and Ben Affleck are having similar career trajectories. Both started out in the same indie movie, Dazed and Confused. Both went on to work on movies of varying quality. And now, both have recently found themselves getting pickier with their choices and putting out quality project after quality project. People point to True Detective as the start of the McConoughey renaissance. Those people clearly never saw Mud.

I expected Interstellar to be good. I’ve found that to be a good rule of thumb to apply to any Christopher Nolan movie. However, I didn’t expect it to be this good. I don’t know why I thought Nolan would only deliver a better than usual outer space movie. But he doesn’t just deliver that. Instead, he gives us a movie that transcends the genre. A sizeable part of the movie takes place on Earth before McConoughey and his team head to space, but it didn’t just feel like lengthy build-up. Instead it was a great story about the relationship between a father and a daughter, a relationship that underpins the rest of the movie.

Some spoilers follow. If you haven’t seen the film yet, come back when you have.

The effects in the movie are, pun completely intended, out of this world. When that ocean sized tidal wave is bearing down on the away team, man, the whole theater seemed to be filled with water. It was almost vertigo-inducing, watching that wave get ready to splash down the hapless scientist.

The biggest surprise in the movie definitely has to be Matt Damon being such an asshole. Sure, Matt Damon has played less than scrupulous people before, but has he ever played the villain like he plays here? Most of the movie can be described at man-against-nature, but when Damon shows his true colors, there is a definite shift to man vs. man. He is one legitimately bad guy in this movie. And he plays the part so well. Matt Damon’s Mann is a sympathetic villain, you definitely get where he is coming from, but he’s still a ruthless asshole.

I’ve heard people complain about the ending of the movie, the most common complaint being “that’s not what happens when you go through a black hole.” But that complaint is like complaining “that’s not what happens after you die,” because while science can infer what happens when you near or enter a black hole, until we send something or someone actually through one, it’s up to the imaginations of writers and artists and decide that.

Is Interstellar the best outer space movie of 2014? I think I would have to give that honor to Guardians of the Galaxy, but even comparing the two seems to be a folly. There needs to be a subdivision in outer space movies putting films like Gravity and Interstellar in one, and films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Wars in the other. What’s the dividing line? Whether or not the heroes are fighting aliens with laser guns? Maybe. But there’s no doubt that both categories of outer space movies produce gems, one of which is Interstellar.

Interstellar is a definitely-see.