Interstellar

Director: Christopher Nolan

With: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Bill Irwin, Mackenzie Foy, David Gyasi, Ellen Burstyn, Topher Grace 

I became a fan of Nolan after watching The Dark Knight and Inception, those two films are up there in my favorite movies chart. I even defended The Dark Knight Rises despite its imperfections. In Interstellar, it's official, I want to have Nolan's brain in a jar along with Darren Aronofsky's and Woody Allen's. Not that I am jumping up and down about it, in fact, it's only during the third act when I started to truly appreciate the film. But the first two was kind of lost to me, or it's the other way around.

That's how Nolan's films work (at least for me). It strays you for how intelligent they are and you'll end up not getting all the right details after watching it. It requires you to either rewatch it or just read summaries and explanations in the web. It takes a while for you to fully grasp his movies and Interstellar is no different. In fact, I think it is his most complicated and emotional film to date.

A thought provoker but also a heart tugger, Christopher Nolan's Interstellar will bring your mind far away to the galaxy but will lead your heart back home where it belongs. It's about a former NASA pilot named Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) who had to leave his family behind to travel through a wormwhole in search for a new habitual planet. As what Michael Caine's character said, "We're not meant to save the world, we're meant to leave it."

Oh boy, I didn't expect it to be as ambitious and as metaphorical as I've imagined it would be that I think it's one of the most grandiose films I've ever seen. It's the embodiment of the phrase 'visually stunning' and behind all that is a concept that's rich in Science and a story about a subject everyone could relate to, love and family. Like the usual Nolan fashion though, the action scenes and its climax dominate the overall persona of the film. The climax especially wherein it completely stopped making sense that I think it's the dealbreaker for its haters, but it's the scene that astounded me the most and therefore, it made me lean towards loving it than loathing it. Those scenes, I said to myself, that's amazing imagination and magnificent vision. There's no problem with being ambitious when you could back it up like how Nolan would do in his films.

What made it even more stellar is the ensemble. You have a charismatic lead in Matthew McConaughey, a laughable yet commanding act by Anne Hathaway, touching performances by Jessica Chastain and Mackenzie Foy (Renesmee hehe) as Cooper's daughter Murphy, and more. The cameos are also terrific. Matthew McConaughey would probably end up on top of my best actor list for 2014 films and it's such a shame because if he didn't win Best Actor for Dallas Buyers Club, his performance in this movie would be a jackpot for him. I'd even dare say that his Cooper is probably his best performance. I do not understand how Nolan intended Anne Hathaway's character to be, but everything about her in the film was fun to watch, and for me cringe is equal to funny. My favorite character in the movie is Murphy, and I give credit to the actresses who played her because they're very good and very likable. Mackenzie Foy and Jessica Chastain are equally rootable in the film and they've overcome the most often cheesy script of Christopher Nolan.

It's not the cleanest film there is. The sound mixing is quite terrible especially in the end. The score is overbearing sometimes and this comes from a huge Hans Zimmer fan. Sure it's memorable and iconic, but it's not one of his most appealing compositions. Overall, I do hate and I do love his tracks.

Despite the flaws and the cheesiness, Nolan created a genius sci-fi drama that will remain as one of the memorable films of the year. The climax still resonates to me and I'm still in awe just by thinking about it. It's astonishing!

Transcendence

Director: Wally Pfister
With: Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Kate Mara, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy

Transcendence, the movie that marked Christopher Nolan's resident cinematographer Wally Pfister is not as bad as its trailer implied and not as weak as what most critics are saying. Although far from being perfect, its concept is rather absorbing. It's just the narrative that falls short in a deep deep grave.

Think of Transcendence as a scifi action version of Spike Jonze's Her. Like Her, it tackles love (it is part of the movie's depth) but it focuses on the negative effects of artificial intelligence machine that Will (Johnny Depp) and his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) planned to establish in which Will called it as 'Transcendence'. Things went wrong and the suspense happened.

Except not really.

What's lacking in this movie is the tension that viewers expected in the film. It lacks action even if the scenes involve explosions, guns and canyons. It lacks the grip even though the concept is interesting. The unremarkable storytelling and the lame conflicts and climax pulled down the capability of its premise. Even worse, the film contains annoying and somewhat idiotic characters that just makes you not want to root for any of them.

Most especially Rebecca Hall. I liked her in Vicky Cristina Barcelona and The Town but she didn't deliver well in this film. It doesn't help that she's playing an irritating character. No one stood out in this film. Everybody's just okay. Johnny Depp can't catch a break.

Pfister maintained his cinematographic talent as it's very palpable in the film but not enough to carry the whole movie especially with the excessive head scratcher ideas in its plot. With a weak screenplay that most of the time, doesn't know where it is headed, I doubt there's a way for Pfister to improve it. A different approach and a sharper plotting to the artificial intelligence concept would have made it better.

Even then, I expected it to be extremely horrible. Johnny Depp's face with nail-like screws and wires on his head looked ridiculous and don't get me started with his facial expression. Didn't plan on watching it because of how terrible the whole thing looked but I did anyway as I had a lot of time to waste before catching the first schedule of Budapest Hotel. Luckily for me, it ended up being below decent and tolerable. But yes, it's a movie I wouldn't care if I skipped it.