By Debbie Schlussel

**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****

“Interstellar” debuted Wednesday at the few movie theaters which still show film, and it will debut tomorrow (Friday) at most theaters (with some offering early screenings tonight), which are digital. I am, therefore, a day late or a day early, depending upon where you live, with this review. Either way, I enjoyed the movie with a few reservations. I saw it in crystal clear IMAX, and as I always say, “Once you go IMAX, you never go BAX.”

I loved the movie, until the hokey parts toward the end. While it was a thriller full of action and suspense, it also touched on so many issues and was about so many things beyond that. It shows a loving, dedicated father–something you see very little of in Hollywood films–and depicts a love story between the father and his daughter. It slaps down those who question America’s lunar landings, mocking them, and it questions Communist-style job selection for kids at a young age (something that is apparently a feature of Common Core on some fronts). It raises questions of science and family and whether one would risk possibly never seeing family again in order to save the earth. It’s a smart movie for those of us interested in science, and those of us disappointed that America is very obsessed with Kardashians, but turns out a bunch of morons who are way behind in science, math, engineering, etc. It’s also a tribute to cowboys of the space variety. And it’s far better, in my view, than the vastly overrated “Gravity” (read my review)–I liked it, but didn’t worship it like the rest of the movie world). Plus, true to real life, a truly evil guy is played by a truly evil guy in real life: Matt Damon. Some say his appearance in this movie is a “surprise,” but he’s listed online in the credits, so how much of a surprise is it, really?

Here’s what I didn’t like:

I could have done without the semi-mild anti-war and environazi part of the storyline and plot–that the world is disintegrating and a lot of humans and animals have died after a great war of sorts, that the earth rises up in poisonous dust storms, and that few crops can be grown (at the time of the movie’s setting, it’s just corn, corn, and more corn). Granted, this is just a tiny part of the movie, but it’s there. A fault of the storytelling in the movie is that they never really explain what happened and why, nor do they tell you why the earth is bad for you and rises up in storms.

And then there are those hokey scenes I referenced. One of them takes place toward the end of the movie. There is a scene–when all hope is supposed to be lost–that shows star Matthew McConaughey in some sort of surreal world without time and space, featuring lots of different times and scenes of the same place and the same person. It looked like it was ripped off from another of Director Christopher Nolan’s films, “Inception” (read my review), and I wasn’t buying it. (This is far better than “Inception,” by the way, and not pretentious like that movie was.)

Also, not in my bought items list, the last few scenes, where things are neatly fixed, resolved, and everyone is happy. Yes, I like happy, uplifting movies, but it just wasn’t believable how everything was resolved or this notion that we are calling ourselves out from the past and future. Didn’t make sense. Some of the things in this movie, such as equations for gravity and suggestions that gravity is just another dimension to others, may be confusing even for a physicist.

Plus the movie is nearly three hours long (169 minutes to be exact). So don’t drink anything like I did before the movie. I had to go sooo badly for the second half of the movie but didn’t want to miss anything. I wasn’t bored at any point during this length, and it went by quickly, unlike most long movies. But the filmmakers possibly could have made it a little shorter. In this, there are so many stories and there’s so much going on that it had to be longer than average, but probably would have been fine at 2.5 hours.

The story: set sometime in the future, the earth has been afflicted by war and some sort of series of dust storms have killed a lot of people and animals and ruined the ability of the people to grow many crops. This time around, it’s corn. They can no longer grow wheat or potatoes. There is no electricity or power of that sort. McConaughey is Cooper, a former Air Force pilot and engineer, who is now, like most others, stuck being a farmer because the population needs food. He’s a widower because his wife died of cancer, since there were no operable MRI machines, given the lack of power, etc. And, so, he’s raising his young son and daughter on the farm with the help of his father.

Cooper’s daughter is genius smart and thinks she sees “ghosts” or some sort of aliens giving her signs in the dust that settles on her bedroom floor. But Cooper says it’s gravity. One day, they search the location suggested by the bars formed by the dust and the gravity. They stumble into NASA and Cooper’s old professor, Dr. Brandt (Michael Caine), who tells him that the world will eventually die/be destroyed. Brandt recruits Coop to fly with some other astronauts into space, in search of another world to which to transfer human life. But Coop will have to leave his young kids for a long time and he knows that he might never come back because who knows what will happen in space? Would you leave your young kids, possibly forever, in order to sustain the human race? It’s one of many issues and questions the movie asks. Coop goes on the mission and is joined by Brandt’s daughter (Anne Hathaway), and he communicates with his kids via video communications that are sent back and forth, some of them over long periods of time. There are issues with time and aging, and it’s all very interesting and good for the plot. Ditto for the wormholes and other cool stuff we space-loving people love. To give much more away would take away from the magic of the movie.

My favorite part of the movie is the scene in which Cooper’s teacher tells him why his genius daughter is in trouble at school. She brought the old textbook to school, and that’s a no-no because it depicts the astronauts landing on the Moon. The new, improved textbooks instead explain to kids that we never landed on the Moon and that it was all staged by America to make the Soviets bankrupt themselves by spending on a space program. Cooper tells off the teacher and the principal. It’s in the same scene that Cooper is told his son has been selected to be a farmer, based on his test scores, even though Cooper wants his son to go to college and make something of himself other than farming. But, as I noted above, the society currently needs people to grow food, not go to college to become engineers or study history, so the kid doesn’t have a choice. Big Brother government at work.

As I said, I really liked the movie. It’s entertaining, thought provoking, and enjoyable. Plus the acting is terrific, as are the special effects. Unlike other movies with pounding musical scores, I enjoyed the music in this one and it’s very appropriate, adding to the suspense and excitement (though it might get on your nerves). And this is just one of the good movies out this weekend. Stay tuned for the rest of my reviews after Midnight tonight.

**** UPDATE: As a commenter noted, this movie is fine for kids and has no sex or gratuitous language (at least that I can remember regarding the language). Younger children might not understand some of it, as it is confusing even for adults. But I think for teens and pre-teens, it’s fine.

FOUR REAGANS (with slight reservations, as noted above)

Watch the trailer . . .