An attempt at epic story telling that does not quite make it.

Rating: 6/10 (20 November 2014)

A long, tedious movie. It attempts to be an epic but fails. It attempts to say something profound, but the message is garbled. The movie attempts to mix jumbled pseudo-scientific dialogue with a melodramatic subplot involving a father and daughter, producing a muddled story with little dramatic power. The movie contains elements from 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Matrix, with its bombastic musical flourishes and the special effects meant to depict extra-dimensionality, all pure Hollywood. Matthew McConaughey is the principal actor; his character, Cooper, is the central figure of the story; the rest of the cast are supporting characters (their placement in the credits notwithstanding). McConaughey gives an interesting performance, which includes several scenes in which he weeps, which for a leading man is remarkable. The depiction of earth as a doomed planet is unconvincing and the plan to colonize other planets half-baked and one that tests the limits of plausibility. Being a science-fiction movie, stretching the boundaries of science for literary purposes is to be expected, but this movie asks the audience to accept certain premises that just do not make sense (e.g, acceleration of time; relationship of time to gravity; time as a material object). This movie is proof that when Hollywood attempts to deal with time warps, time holes, multi-dimensionality, relativity, and other complex scientific theories, the results can be less than optimum.