Although Matthew McConaughey and his crew of astronauts had to leave in search of other planets, you will not want to leave the theater after watching Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. I know that after watching that visually stunning, mind-boggling, undeniably perfect movie, all I wanted to do was sit down and rewatch it. Let’s rocket into why this space epic is such a great movie.

In this sci-fi film, Earth is slowly dying as crops are running out and another dust bowl starts to wreak havoc on towns across America. The main protagonist Cooper, played by Matthew McConaughey, is a former NASA pilot that lives on his farm with his son Tom, daughter Murph, and father-in-law Donald. However, one night Cooper and Murph stumble upon NASA’s secret headquarters, and Cooper is asked by NASA’s physicist Dr. Brand to lead the mission that would help save mankind: a trip through a wormhole to help find another planet suitable for humankind.

Cooper decides to lead the mission, along with Dr. Brand’s daughter, Brand, and two other astronauts. They set out going to the three planets past the wormhole where 10 years prior they sent astronauts to decide whether the planet was habitable for humans. The first planet, covered in water and giant waves, is found hazardous, and one of the crew members, Doyle dies. When they get off the hazardous planet, they found out that the due to the blackhole the relativity of time is flawed, so 23 years have passed on Earth in the hours they were on the planet.

Coop, Brand, and Romilly who is the other astronaut, have enough fuel to go to one of the two planets left to visit. They decide on the planet that Dr. Mann, played by Matt Damon, went to years prior and is still inhabiting. For those who haven’t seen it and those who have, it gets really confusing and complex, so I won’t try to summarize from here.

One of my favorite parts of the movie was the musical score. Hans Zimmer, the best in the game, used amazing church organs to put together the legendary music. The best part is that the director didn’t tell him it was a sci-fi space movie but that it was a movie about family. However, it all went together perfectly, and I have been listening to the soundtrack for a whole two months after watching it. Also, I thought that it was very interesting that they hired a REAL PHYSICIST to make sure everything about space was accurate. They went hard on this movie; HARD.

The acting in this film was alright, alright, alright, and by that, I mean a fantastic job. Matthew McConaughey had a stunning performance as the lead. He was a likeable character that had me excited, sad, and in awe throughout. Quite frankly, I would put it up there as one of his best performances.

McConaughey wasn’t the only astronaut with an out of this world performance. Anne Hathaway did a great job as a supporting actor, along with Jessica Chastain as Murph, who delivered a great performance. Also, props to the casting because casting Michael Caine as a brilliant NASA scientist couldn’t be more accurate.

The visual effects of this movie were anything but ordinary. As hard as it is to believe, very little CGI was used for this film. Yes, a SPACE movie that WON the Oscar for best visual effects hardly used green screen or CGI. They went about different methods, such as traveling around the world to places like Canada and projecting the setting behind the actor, to produce the visually stunning film. I am still in awe of the shots of outer space, and it puzzles me down to the bone that they did not use CGI.

This movie was quite the adventure, with strong themes about family and love throughout. Heartrending, exciting, and impactful, this movie is definitely one of my favorites of all time.