Interstellar Movie Review

My take and theories about what the film was about and how it all makes sense, mostly.

By Ken Parker

I have to admit that Interstellar looked like my type of film from the trailers. With comparisons to 2001 A Space Odyssey, one of my favorite films of all time, I had high expectations for Interstellar. Having reservations about the length of the film, I had confidence in Christopher Nolan's track record with movies such as Memento, Inception, The Prestige, Insomnia and The Dark Knight. Going into the movie with high expectations is not always a good thing.

The following review has spoilers and is meant to be read by someone who has seen the film. I won't go into detail about the story, just facets of the script and what I thought worked and didn't.

Interstellar - IMAX Trailer

Christian Bale: The next Batman (huh?)

You look familiar. Have we met before?

Now that Christian Bale has hung up his cape and cowl, let's address rumors about who will next play Batman on the big screen.

The latest actor attached to the role? Christian Bale.

Confused?

According to a report from Latino Review, Bale is in discussions to don the Bat-tights for a Justice League movie in 2015. That makes sense when you consider that the site also is reporting that Bat-director Christopher Nolan will oversee the project.

Oh, and prepare for a geek overload.

"Man of Steel" director Zack Snyder is mentioned as a Justice League producer and potential director. That raises the possibility of Henry Cavill wearing the Super-cape in the same movie.

Top that, Marvel.

Bane said what?

Maybe if he took that thing off his mouth ...

First, a confession. As any friend will tell you, I am hard of hearing, especially on my right side. As a result, I sometimes watch DVDs at home with the closed captioning turned on. That's part of the reason that the latest news about "The Dark Knight Rises" caught my ear (sorry).

I found the voice of the villain Bane, portrayed by Tom Hardy, difficult to understand in the early clips of the movie. At first, I thought it might just be me. Then I read other people saying the same thing.

Multiple Internet sources - Adam Chitwood of collider.com posted the "exclusive" - are reporting that negative feedback about the sound caused Warner Bros. to distribute a remix of the film's prologue that is being shown in IMAX theaters:

“A friend of mine who is an IMAX projectionist told me they received a new soundtrack for the Dark Knight Rises prologue. He said it’s now a combo soundtrack with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, but the cool thing about this is that they’ve cleaned up the dialogue. They’ve gone in and lowered the background noise of the plane and other things, thus making Bane’s dialogue clearer and more understandable. He asked some people after they left the movie if they could understand Bane and they all said they had no issue understanding him, and were excited for the movie.”

Collider also published a copy of a letter being sent to IMAX theaters about the fix.

Seems simple enough. After all, who in their right mind would not want to clean up the dialogue so that viewers can understand what one of the main characters is saying?

Director Christopher Nolan, for one, is not crazy about the idea. He reportedly was opposed to reworking Bane's voice, although not against adjusting other sound in the mix.

Then, shortly after the Collider story appeared, the site was contacted by the studio:

Warner Bros as contacted me and said that our story is absolutely not true.

Maybe I will just wait for the DVD and watch the closed captioning. Well, I would if I had any willpower.

'The Dark Knight Rises' prologue - SPOILERS!

What did you say?

We're not taking credit for any of this. Not a single word. All of the we're-not-worthy kudos go to Janice Kay of ScienceFiction.com, who cleverly pieced together the following description of the upcoming trailer for "The Dark Knight Rises." The title of World's Greatest Detective is taken, but Kay deserves special recognition for her work on this.

One more time - SPOILERS ahead. Do not clock on "read more" unless you want to, you know, read more.

Introducing Bane - before 'The Dark Knight Rises'

Bane "unmasked" in preview.

An early peek at "The Dark Knight Rises" - about eight minutes of footage - was screened by director Christopher Nolan on Thursday. Just in case you weren't on the guest list for the viewing - yes, we misplaced our tickets, too - the preview will be seen by audiences in select IMAX theaters later this month before "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol."

According to The Hollywood Reporter:

The majority of the preview introduced audiences to Bane, the Batman movie's major villain, played by a masked Tom Hardy. Without giving too much away, the footage revolved around a heist involving a plane.

The sequence was grand in scope, expanding the Batman world outside of Gotham City, and it was filled with a lot of tension and dread. The effect was not only from the images on screen but from the score, which was reminiscent of Nolan's The Dark Knight and Inception.

In Massachusetts, the IMAX theaters that will be showing the footage include the Jordan's IMAX  in Natick and the IMAX 3D Theatre in Reading. For a complete list, click here.

Sorry, we don't have a link the video - yet.

R.I.P., Bruce Wayne? Long Live The Batman

Have we seen the last of The Batman?

We already know that "The Dark Knight Rises" is the final picture in the trilogy of Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale movies about Batman.

But is it also the end for Batman?

Or at least Bruce Wayne?

Holy Conspiracy Theory!

Playing the role of Barbara Gordon ... do you really want to know?

We have an autographed version of this Batgirl photograph.

Yes, we're talking a possible Major Spoiler for "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises." But do not worry - we promise not to give anything away until after the jump.

Everyone knows the main characters - Christian Bale returning as the Caped Crusader and Gary Oldman as Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon. If you've been paying any attention at all, you know Anne Hathaway appears as Catwoman and the villain is Bane, portrayed by Tom Hardy.

But the folks at The Dark Knight Rises Rumors - WARNING: Clicking that link will reveal the surprise, too - have been busy digging a little deeper. Evidence suggests that the film will introduce another character from the comics - Barbara Gordon, daughter of the commissioner. She's also Batgirl, of course (if you consider that a spoiler, turn in your cowl right now). And, later, she became Oracle.

What leads the people at Rumors to this conclusion? The photograph of a trailer door on the New York City set.

Director Christopher Nolan discusses the finale in his Batman trilogy

Third time's the harm?

Christopher Nolan opening up about "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises"?

Hard to believe, isn't it? And while the secretive director is not giving away too many details, he is finally talking about his much-anticipated third - and final - installment in the series. As he told Empire Magazine:

"It's really all about finishing Batman and Bruce Wayne's story. We left him in a very precarious place. Perhaps surprisingly for some people, our story picks up quite a bit later, eight years after The Dark Knight. So he's an older Bruce Wayne; he's not in a great state.

"With Bane, we're looking to give Batman a challenge he hasn't had before. With our choice of villain and with our choice of story we're testing Batman both physically as well as mentally."

The 'official' synopsis for 'The Dark Knight Rises'

Christian Bale and his cowled alter ego return in 2012.

Cosmic Book News is reporting that it has a copy of the official plot synopsis for "The Dark Knight Rises." Maybe it is legitimate. Maybe not. But there is no doubt that it fits in with everything else we've head.

So here goes (minor spoilers, if you haven't been paying attention to the kazillion other spoiler posts on the movie)

"Every hero has a journey. Every journey has an end. Christopher Nolan returns to complete the epic Gotham trilogy that launched with Batman Begins and reached the stratosphere with the billion-dollar blockbuster The Dark Knight.