Boring and dreary

Rating: 4/10 (19 May 2015)

Boring, long soap-opera mishmash of a couple of ideas from '2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968) and 'Contact' (1997). I was extremely disappointed with this film as I had very high expectations for it. I expected advanced aliens and a new beginning for mankind – what I got was human relationships (including a lie told in the best overall interests of humanity) complicated by the time dilation effect of travelling vast distances in space plus the effect of gravity near black holes. The inexplicable and constant switching from IMAX format to Panavision made no logical sense and was just plain irritating. Even the visuals in this film were not all that impressive considering the budget it must have had. 'Contact' is three times over a better film than this dreary mess and '2001: A Space Odyssey' is ten times better. I think the director of this film was too wrapped-up in trying (and failing) to keep the science authentic and the scope of the film epic-like – at the expense of entertaining the audience.