Largely Over-hyped, Laboriously Flawed

Rating: 5/10 (13 November 2014)

I really wanted to like this movie, I really did. I'm a huge science fiction fan, and if Nolan had kept the "realism" and tone that the first hour or so promised, I would've been more than happy with this film.
Nolan's imagination is impressive, an expansive force that drives many of his movies. However, it is also his downfall in "Interstellar," a film in which he doesn't have the satisfying answers to reconcile the realistic fiction he wants to portray. The plot is littered with points that exist because, well...science. For instance, the characters refer frequently to an equation Michael Cain's character is investigating to solve a "gravity" problem. But not much explanation is put for into how this would solve anything about bringing a colony of people into space.
Finally, this opinion will probably cause many people to ignore me: I feel Nolan is still a very good filmmaker, but this movie glimpses him falling into the same "black hole" (see what I did there?) which ensnared M. Night Shyamalan. Because "Inception" and his Dark Knight trilogy were such a massive, profound success, he feels the need to make every ounce of dialogue ooze from the actors' mouths as if it's the most important, mind-altering thing you've ever heard. The movie becomes bogged down with long, dragging sequences of people staring as if in wonder, coming to realizations that are meant to inspire awe in us. However, these do little more than bloat an already over-long running time that felt like 7 years, but amounted to one Earth hour. The end serves up a slew of maddeningly predictable "twists" that were pretty obvious an hour before the big reveal.
I will say the acting is done incredibly well by the cast, even if their script is not always on par with their talents. As always, Nolan is exceptional with visuals, and most of the tremendously dramatic middle portion was effective, albeit borderline overdone with sap. I could've managed without as many repetitions of Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night." A beautiful poem that is awkwardly spouted throughout the film. A couple times was effective, five times was pretentious.
This will not deter me from seeing future Nolan feature presentations, however, it in no way deserves the IMDb "9" rating that it has simply because it is Nolan. I can see why people would be impressed enough by the visuals to forgo the convoluted, flawed story, but not enough to land the film in any top 250. If this exact film were released under any other filmmaker's name (besides perhaps Spielberg or the like), I can guarantee you it would be far less lauded by audiences.