There is zero doubt that Interstellar is a beautiful movie. See it in IMAX and you will be transported through wormholes and the vast space beyond the Great Nothing. However if you are not well versed in quantum mechanics or how time is theorized to work in regards to relativity, brush up or you may get lost during large chunks of the film. This movie is dense in its logic. Too dense for my liking, in fact, and that is a problem. While the 2 hours and 45 minutes of running time is stuffed with many interesting ideas, it isn’t very entertaining. Toss in a couple of third act plot holes and Interstellar proves to be more failure than success.
What frustrates is that director Christopher Nolan can usually pull something complex crazy like this off. Look at his filmography and you will see nothing but examples of a filmmaker who can push convention and get a massive audience to follow him. His Dark Knight trilogy reinvented the genre and challenged the boring conventions that we had grown used to. Yes, in many ways we can thank Mr. Nolan for the new superhero movie being released bi-weekly from now to the end of 2019.
The film that Interstellar is most related to in his canon is, of course, Inception. Inception operated on a high level of intelligence, there Nolan had more fun revealing the tricks he held up his sleeve. Creating a world of his own invention and playing around with that reality. Here in Interstellar he confounds you without that satisfaction.
The A list cast that Nolan recruited doesn’t help matter much either. Matthew McConaughey is fine as the lead, hotshot pilot ace Cooper, but he is simply doing McConaughey. He does anchor some strong emotional scenes as a disconnected father that are the film’s best moments but mostly he’s Texas drawling his way through the rest of the material. Both Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain struggle with the techie dialogue and sound like they are reciting the convoluted lines as opposed to speaking them. Matt Damon shows up late as the film’s worst plot device that derails the movie and turns it into something that doesn’t work. I won’t spoil but his character is a major misstep.
Interstellar will take you places you’ve never seen before. If you can ignore the obscene music score by Hans Zimmer, these moments almost make it worth your while based on spectacle alone. But it’s those damned characters that go and mess everything up. Let’s talk after you see it because my most burning questions regarding “What the F????” have to do with that end. That horrible, horrible end.