Posts tagged Francis X. McCarthy

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

INTERSTELLAR is the very epitome of a big movie: big production values, big cast, big story, big ideas, but in the end it just might have a small impact on the audience.

When the movie begins, it is the near future, and the Earth is in trouble, because cities have been abandoned, food production is practically the only industry, and yet blights have wiped out almost all of the crops, and dust storms cause life to be suspended while people are forced to take shelter inside.

Michael McConaughey stars as Cooper, a former pilot for NASA who is now a struggling farmer trying to provide a living for his family, which consists of his daughter Murphy, his son Tom, and his dead wife’s father, who is played by John Lithgow.

The reason Cooper is no longer a pilot for NASA is that science has been abandoned for being too expensive and unncecessary, NASA has gone underground, and children in school are being told that Americans never landed on the moon.

One day Cooper and Murphy stumble into a secret NASA compound, where they learn that NASA is still involved in space exploration, only now as a solution to the world’s problems by searching for a planet in another solar system where humanity can travel to live and survive.

The program is being led by Professor Brand, played by Michael Caine, and he tells Cooper, “We need a pilot, and this is the mission you were trained for.”

Professor Brand’s daughter, Amelia, played by Anne Hathaway, is also a scientist, and she will be accompanying Cooper on the mission, which consists of traveling to the planet Saturn, going through a wormhole that is known to exist there, and emerging at another solar system, where they are to find a planet that will be hospitable to humans.

But wait! The story gets even more preposterous.

A black hole is involved in the journey, and because time will be slowed down for Cooper and his crew, they will age much more slowly than the people on Earth.

Thus, Murphy grows up while Cooper is gone, she is now played by Jessica Chastain, and she also becomes a scientist working with Professor Brand.

INTERSTELLAR goes on way too long, it contains too much technobabble, and the loud sound covers up the dialogue.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”