As you may have guessed, given my near-obsessive, compulsive need to cover anything and everything related to director Christopher Nolan, I consider myself to be a bit of a Nolan fanboy. I’m a fan of Nolan’s earlier work as well as his later work (jury’s still out on “Tenet,” though), yet most online film rank videos seem to place the same three films on top of the pedestal: “The Dark Knight,” “Inception” and “Interstellar.”
For this rendition of Film Fight, I wanted to focus on the two films that always seem to be paired up against each another, those being “Inception” and “Interstellar.” Though both films are visually astonishing in their own right, and their respective film scores definitely showcase some of Hans Zimmer’s best work, these two films are often butting heads for the title of “best of the two.”
Personally, I think both films are equally impressive in their own right. Both have jaw-dropping set pieces, compelling characters and a story that’s easy to lose yourself in, and they’re both pristine examples of escapist cinema at their finest.
While people praise “Interstellar’s” score and visual/practical effects, its slow pacing is often at the crux of the film’s criticism, a problem attributed to its difficult-to-like characters and their subsequent lack of chemistry.
In contrast, “Inception” is often attributed with being the “perfect” film, with excellent pacing, likable characters whose motives one can actually get behind, and a story that keeps you engaged with its ever-increasing tension as a result of the plot’s need to take characters deeper and deeper into Fischer’s subconscious by going into dreams within dreams.
Now, I’m not here to tell you which film does what it does best, as that’s your job, but I will say that I love both films equally, albeit for completely different reasons.
It’s my opinion that “Inception” is an entertaining, near-perfect film, thus making it one that’s easy to rewatch and become continually engrossed in. Nevertheless, “Interstellar’s” heartfelt message about how human love (specifically the love between a father and daughter) can transcend space and time and that it, and only it, is the sole mechanism which the film attributes to humanity’s salvation makes “Interstellar” a film that must be watched.
All in all, if I had the ability to rewatch any film indefinitely, I’d pick “Inception.” If I had to pick one last movie to watch (after which I could never see another film again), I’d pick “Interstellar.”
What do you guys think? Which of the two is your favorite Nolan film? Hit up our Twitter poll above to vote.
