Interstellar

⭐ 6.0/10

(Originally written by Tim)

After seeing some bad takes on Oppenheimer, I decided to revisit a Nolan movie I don't like despite all my friends liking. Hadn't seen it since the theatres, and turns out I still don't like it.

The visuals here are great, in particular everything around the black holes. Also, that docking sequence is a top tier space movie moment, its been done a million times but Nolan's aesthetic with the Zimmer score make it amazing. But this movie is too long and tries to do so much more than just be a spectacle so I can't let that move the score for me.

The standout scene is definitely the call montage with his kids, that is just an amazing idea for a story like this and it feels like the seed the whole movie was born from.

Okay onto what I don't like. Number one, Murph. The name is so corny with the Murphy's Law stuff. The whole movie hinges on her being so heartbroken at her dad leaving, but we are supposed to also believe she is a genius? As a kid I get it, but even as an adult she is so bitter towards him leaving even though she now works for NASA and understands why he left and what he did and didn't know at the time. It made that character very hateable for me, and their dynamic is the crux of the movie.

I'm not gonna go all Neil Degrasse Tyson on this movie, but the science is so ridiculous. Nolan loves his exposition, and all the quantum jargon sounds silly. Outside of that, every character gives so many eye-rolling monologues explicitly stating their views. There is no nuance here, everyone is a philosopher. When the conclusion of the movie is love transcending all dimensions I just can't help but laugh. I feel like the movie gets so close to some 2001 level ideas, and many of the visuals are clearly inspired by that movie, but Nolan feels like everyone needs to explain everything where that movie is silent for long stretches. Matt Damon's character gives a typical bad guy sermon while he is betraying them. Every moment looses something when a character opens their mouth to explain it to us.

I feel like Inception is a better version of this movie, because that movie deals with entirely made up science that actually need explaining. So even when that doesn't make sense it feels like it works. Here it is building on concepts that do exist and it all crumbles for me. Honestly even Tenet, which is 90% hogwash, is better because it builds new sci-fi from the ground up.

Minor complaint but as cool and unique as the robot design is, they gotta give them more distinctive voices, or at least a visual indicator when they are talking. I kept hearing random voices and not being able to tell who was talking when it was more than just one on one with a robot, and then they introduce another one! Just annoyed me.

I love a director who has consistent themes in their work, and where one movie changes in light of the others. Nolan plays with time in all of his movies, this one maybe even more than the others. The time dilation stuff is interesting, and the root of the best scene in the movie, but when you make a movie so devoted to science yet inconsistent in its use it is hard to take it seriously because you are constantly wondering why this or that didn't add more years to the people on earth! Its dramatic when a pit stop leads to them losing decades, but it feels like they abandon that idea with other planetary visits or black hole slingshots. Whatever, I said I wasn't gonna be science nitpicky but this movie forces you to be, and I am not a scientist!

I will again shout out the Zimmer score since it is amazing and I think every space movie since has been trying to copy it in some way. He really is the composer of our time, and once again I am longing for Dune Part 2.