With humanity’s time on Earth coming to an end, a team of explorers undertakes the most important mission in human history; traveling beyond this galaxy via a wormhole to discover whether mankind has a future among the stars. Google

For the sake of fair and honest reviewing let me state that I went into this film hoping for awe and wonder but a teeny bit ‘over’ it even before I saw it.

Six months of being carpet bombed by the same trailer will do that to me.

And it hasn’t just been the trailer, the science behind the movie is everywhere in the media. Empire film magazine went completely squeally fan girl on it, devoting a good quarter of last month’s issue to the film that they say will be one of the top 10 science fiction movies of all time. One critic gave it five stars out of a possible four and everyone from Dickie on Channel 9 to Rotten Tomatoes seems to think it is the second coming of Stanley Kubrick.

It is as if every journo has just discovered science too.

Pssst – Stephen Hawking, Brian Cox, TED and many other worthy organisations have been trying to get us to pay attention for a while now.

Still, to be fair, the film does make a big effort to get things right. Based on studies and theories by astrophysicist Kip Thorne, even the genial presenter of Cosmos, Neil Degrasse Tyson has weighed in on its accuracy, with comments during his talks and on Twitter.

So points to director Christopher Nolan for trying. Still, how does a spaceship that needs three stages of rockets to leave Earth’s gravity just leap up off a world that has 133% of Earth’s gravity AND it lives right next door to a black hole? Aaaand what about the ‘blight’ on crops that starts the whole decay of society and decision to leave Earth? It is never explained, even hinted as to how or why the blight (a common name for infections that attack a particular plant species) leaps across different crops. Or how, if grains are struggling, why trees and grass are doing ok. There are some good answers on Slate, so you can make up your own mind and I can stop whinging.

With the exception of the animation inside the black hole the film covers much the same ground as the excellent Jodie Foster film Contact and the ominous Sunshine, and doesn’t compare to them well. Although, the three-dimensional construct within the multi-dimensional black hole is innovative and exciting, and yes, potentially accurate.

Yet science is not my biggest issue. I can watch and enjoy the impossible Sharknado and not worry about its accuracy. However, even though the cast of Interstellar is great and the cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema is grand it lacks heart. There is an attempt to show both the biggest and best of mankind juxtaposed against our fears and pettiness – which may be the most interesting aspect of the film.

It looks good but too familiar, coming after Sandra Bullock’s excellent Gravity. I did not relax for even one moment in that film but where I should have been on the edge of my seat in this film I was not particularly involved. There were moments of greatness but not awe and wonder.

A good film, but not a great film. 2001 is safe on its pedestal.