Downbeat Predicaments Drag this Overly-Complicated Epic

Rating: 6/10 (29 November 2014)

This film is has so many subplots it should have been a mini-series. Over-reaching in ambition, there are too many complications dropped in to allow you to settle down and just enjoy the wonder of space. With so many elements to this extravaganza, there are 3 hours worth of story to trudge through. I go on and on about the 2 hour rule, the amount of time an audience is willing to sit before they get fidgety. But certainly I think a movie can go into overtime if it justifies it. Interstellar does not. What started losing me was the numerous themes the film was trying to juggle, and kept throwing at us to provide momentum through the long long running time.
What would have justified the running time were longer moments of enjoying the ride. Less moments of just how depressed everyone is. Giving characters something to live for is necessary, but the sentimentality goes too far when we need a spark in the screenplay instead. This includes a downbeat revelation about the main storyline that cheats not only the main characters, but the audience as well, who both have invested a great deal of time this far into the story. Nolan decides to delve into psychology and about why people lie. That is one of the many themes that should have stayed out of this screenplay.
With some dumb moments where odd things happen in the first act, you immediately go "well OK, that doesn't make sense now, but obviously it will be about something in the third act". But when they do return, it doesn't resonate like the screenplay wants to. Worse, the final resolution comes through such an absolute ridiculous metaphysical macguffin, that it feels glossed over because of the implausibility. Ands that's in a film that acknowledges a lot of "hey this is science fiction" type of implausibilities.
As a big event film, it certainly delivers. The trip through the wormhole is thrilling. Moments of danger in the cockpit are well executed. Matthew McConaughey has plenty of personality to carry a film of this size. But he gets dragged down by his resentful daughter. The entire film has too much sad and angry moments. McConaughey is only in his element when he displays his heroism, something sadly lacking in a film about mankind's survival.