A whirling sky outside an aircraft spins in dizzying circles, going faster and faster. A man’s yells of delight louder and louder until… darkness and silence.

“Interstellar” had its official opening Nov. 7.

Although trailers reveal the plot of astronauts being sent into space to find a new habitable planet for the human race due to food shortages on Earth, director Christopher Nolan creates an atmosphere of so much more than another run-of-the-mill sci-fi movie.

The scene is set with Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and his daughter Murphy (Mackenzie Foy) having a brief discussion about Cooper’s nightmares while Cooper looks out into his field of corn, with smoke and dust on the rim of the horizon.

Soon, it is revealed that the Earth is facing a blight, an airborne disease that targets different food crops every year, forcing the humans to find a new place to live.

As time slowly runs out for the inhabitants of Earth, Cooper and Murphy stumble upon a hidden NASA base, headed by Professor Brand (Michael Caine).

While Professor Brand pushes Cooper to take the position of pilot on a space expedition to another galaxy to find a different planet for the humans to live on, Cooper faces the tough decision of whether or not to leave Murphy, his son Tom (Timothée Chalamet) and his father Donald (John Lithgow).

Once Cooper takes the position and the space expedition begins, Nolan begins to truly stun the crowd with the fantastic images of space and wormholes. The score, directed by Hans Zimmer, tugs at the different emotions the characters embody on the spacecraft.

The score was composed of incredible string music, and each note began to drive the audience’s mind in a different direction, lending even more power to the visuals of the film.

Throughout the film, both incredible visuals and music help to fill in moments where characters (and the audience) are stunned into moments of silence, either in awe of the sights, or in shock of the sudden twists and turns that the “Interstellar” story contains.

Although the running length time of the movie is 169 minutes (nearly three hours), Nolan makes that time disappear as the characters face trial after trial that tests their emotional and physical strength.

While the emotional side of “Interstellar” has been debated about whether or not it was a good addition to the movie in terms of storyline and necessity, Nolan still delivers a powerful ‘epic’ describing the passion and intensity that struggles of life bring with change.

The music was enough to blow people away, as it was so well blended into the movie that it seemed to be just as much a part of the movie as the characters were. However, there were moments where there seemed to be some sort of audio mixing issues, where the sound was so loud dialogue was lost, which was a real disappointment.

Although the sound was amazing, there are points of this movie in which it almost hurt to sit through, with so many loud noises. It could have proved helpful to bring some earplugs for certain scenes.

The visuals were what really hit high on the ranking list. With amazingly generated scenes and images, audiences could sit for minutes on end looking at the same setting in pure awe at the size and detail that was added into the film.

With all sorts of different twists, visuals and beautifully composed music, “Interstellar” is definitely a must-see in theaters.

by JOEL TIMMS