Nolan's Space Drama is Kind Of A Mixed Bag

Rating: 7/10 (31 May 2018)

If I reviewed this film back in 2014, I would have probably given it a 9/10. However, now I've started to question some of the things about the film that just didn't really work for me.
Christopher Nolan is considered one of the best directors working today, and I can attest to that. He reinvented Batman for the modern audience with "The Dark Knight Trilogy" (after those crappy Joel Schumacher movies), and is even more famous for the thrillers "Memento" and "Inception". Nolan is a director known for making most of his movies think-pieces. With the exception of "The Dark Knight Trilogy", his movies aren't straightforward, especially not "Memento". In fact, they are quite complex. "Interstellar" tries to be, but sometimes, it just feels silly.
PROS:

As usual, Christopher Nolan knows how to make a well made movie. While most directors tend to use computer generated visuals whenever they get the chance, Nolan tries to go for using practical effects as often as he can. And even when he does use CG, it doesn't look distractingly fake.
The cast in this film was great. Matthew McConaughey, Michael Caine, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, and even child actor Mackenzie Foy were all great in their roles. There were some good performances from other actors (Timothee Chalamet, John Lithgow, Casey Affleck), but their roles were quite insignificant.

-A large majority of the movie (specifically the first 2 hours 15 minutes) were absolutely great. It really worked as a dramatic sci-fi epic. I feel that if the movie was half an hour shorter, I would have given this movie a 9 (or maybe even a 10) out of 10.

Parts of the last half an hour (specifically the more heavily scientific elements) were done well. The first three times I watched "Interstellar", this part completely lost me. However, after watching a brief explanation by Neil DeGrasse Tyson (I was THAT desperate to understand this movie), it made a lot of sense.
A large part of this movie is McConaughey's relationship with his characters daughter, played by Mackenzie Foy (as a child), Jessica Chastain (as an adult), and Ellen Burstyn (in her final minutes before she dies). The performances of McCounaghey and Foy really made their relationship feel real, and this even brought some scenes of emotion. I'm specifically referring to two scenes.

The first is when McConaughey tells Foy that he has to leave, but also that he doesn't know when he's coming back. He even states that she may be as old as he is at this moment by the time he comes back (that's kind of a harsh thing to say to your daughter). Their acting really evoked a lot of emotion as it was evident that he didn't want to leave, but did so to be able to save her.
The second is a scene where he is watching video messages in his ship that were sent from his family. After an incident on a planet with harshly different relativity than Earth, McConaughey discovers that 27 years had passed on Earth. He watches messages on the ship and essentially watches his children grow up on a TV screen. The whole scene, McConaughey is weeping as he discovers these important events and regrets that he wasn't there to witness them.

I absolutely loved Hans Zimmer's score. It was absolutely spectacular. Some have joked that this film's score sounded like Hans Zimmer fell asleep on his organ, but I still felt that it was a mesmerizing soundtrack to a very interesting science fiction film.

CONS (spoilers):

The film's last moments didn't work for me. They felt really cheesy. The main plot of the film involves trying to find habitable planets to move humans to. Hathaway wants to go to a certain planet, but partly because her boyfriend is researching it. In this scene, she says that love is the only thing that can go throughout space. To be honest, this felt like a slightly touching scene.

Then I realized that this seemingly insignificant line was actually a big plot point. I won't go too deep into this, but I didn't really appreciate that.

Finally, I felt that the film dragged on in the final moments. Granted, one could say the same about "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (which I gave a 10 out of 10), but all of those moments actually felt necessary; also that was an adaptation of a book, while "Interstellar" was an original idea.

Overall, I do recommend this film. But this is NOT Christopher Nolan's magnum opus that I originally viewed this film as.