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Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated “Interstellar” hits theaters this weekend, but don’t forget about these other intergalactic epics.
The Fifth Element (1997)
Luc Besson doesn’t normally travel to the far reaches for his action adventures, but many were pleased he did for this Bruce Willis-led cult hit, which knows precisely how to employ Milla Jovovich as a dangerous damsel and Gary Oldman as a fashionably gonzo villain. Moreover, if desiring space opera, there aren’t many better ways to get it than with Maïwenn Besco’s literally operatic performance as the tentacled Diva Plavalaguna.
Starship Troopers (1997)
Wildly underrated, Paul Verhoeven’s outer-space satire is epically enjoyable trash, casting soap actors like Denise Richards and Patrick Muldoon alongside “bug” aliens that leave darkly funny, splatterific messes in their wake. A SciFi Channel film that thankfully made it to the big screen, the movie is another reflection of its maker’s tricky lowbrow auteurism, which he also displays in “Showgirls,” another film for the misunderstood canon.
Aliens (1986)
A war film set in space, James Cameron’s “Alien” sequel is a movie whose pulse never slows, shifting from the mounting of a marine army to an all-out battle with those slithery creatures that birth their young via human hosts. Of course, the ultimate showdown involves the two dominant females of two dominant species, making “Aliens” one of cinema’s unlikely feminist landmarks.
Gravity (2013)
Alfonso Cuarón’s virtuoso space saga is firstly a great work of juxtaposition: state-of-the-art in terms of technical prowess and visual effects, yet markedly economical in regard to story and character. The two-person plot (starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) hardly fills the movie’s vast canvas of starry blackness, yet it gives the director room to explore our most primal characteristics. The script isn’t perfect, but the ultimate impact of “Gravity” is close to it.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
It’s beyond cliché at this point to include “2001” on a list of great space films; however, one cannot deny the grandeur of Stanley Kubrick’s magnum opus. Beyond including the most famous jump cut of all time (a caveman’s bone throw encompasses the history of humankind), this picturesque, neon enigma is a paradigm of inventive technique. That it is so resolutely avant garde and still so widely beloved is a testament to its visceral power. ■
“2001: A Space Odyssey” finds its characters facing numerous challenges, including ones from the computer HAL 9000.
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