Plot holes and dead-ends, virtually no character development.

Rating: 3/10 (1 December 2014)

I went to see Interstellar excited to see both a sci-fi film and the new Christopher Nolan film; I left feeling as though I hadn't seen a film at all but nearly three hours worth of undeveloped characters stumbling from one inexplicable and unnecessary plot twist to the next. Nolan intentionally keeps many of the details of his future world hidden, however, is so clumsy with the details that he does provide that by the end of the film the plot comes together to seem like an utter farce. None of the characters are developed enough for the audience to identify with them and as a result the numerous and lengthy close-ups of teary eyed individuals is tedious and tiresome. Many capable actors are kept to only a few relatively insignificant lines but then later reveal massive plot shifts only moments before being killed off. This drastically reduces the emotional impact of the film despite how clearly Nolan is trying to tug at the audience's heart strings. Even the pace of the film (typically a strength of Nolan's) is way off. Much like Inception and the Batman series, Nolan whisks the story along inviting you to forget one or two potential plot holes in order to keep the audience engaged. However, in Interstellar, the plot holes are far too big to ignore and the fast pace often ends with a dead-end plot development. It feels as though Nolan is rushing through individual sequences just to land his plot right back where it started. By the third act, the audience is left wondering what was really accomplished by the first two. The greatest let-down of the film comes at the crescendo, with the audience eagerly awaiting at least some explanation of the numerous confusing plot twists. No such catharsis is offered because it was never intended. The film ends much as it began, disjointed and seemingly without direction.
I realize that this review will seem quite vague to most readers who have not seen the film: I have tried hard to avoid spoiling any plot details. But let me be clear about one thing. The mysteries contained in this film are not well calculated omissions to keep the audience wondering, (as in Kubrick, Lynch or even Nolan's Inception) but clear inconsistencies that the director hopes he can distract the audience from through pacing and special effects. What he misses is that good pacing comes from good acting as much as directing. And good special effects only work when the audience isn't preoccupied with wondering why this particular sequence is happening in the first place. Nolan would do better to cut out many of the unnecessary plot twist sand spend more time letting the many capable actors tell his story and draw the audience in.
In Kurick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, the most compelling, emotional performance of the film was given by a Robot named HAL. Nolan achieves the same feat in Interstellar with the robot TARS. However, in Interstellar, this is not so much a testament to the director's ability to get the audience to empathize with a machine (as Kubrick did) but a statement about how poorly Nolan was able to tell the story through any of the human characters.