Nice One!

Rating: 9/10 (7 June 2016)

Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar," about astronauts traveling to the other end of the galaxy to find a new home to replace humanity's despoiled home-world, is frantically busy and earsplittingly loud. It uses booming music to jack up the excitement level of scenes that might not otherwise excite. It features characters shoveling exposition at each other for almost three hours, and a few of those characters have no character to speak of: they're mouthpieces for techno-babble and philosophical debate. And for all of the director's activism on behalf of shooting on film, the tactile beauty of the movie's 35mm and 65mm textures isn't matched by a sense of composition. The camera rarely tells the story in Nolan's movies. More often it illustrates the screenplay, and there are points in this one where I felt as if I was watching the most expensive NBC pilot ever made. Interstellar is an impressive, at times astonishing movie that overwhelmed me to the point where my usual objections to Nolan's work melted away. (they could apply to any Nolan picture post "Batman Begins"; he is who he is) so that people know that he's still doing the things that Nolan always does. Whether you find those things endearing or irritating will depend on your affinity for Nolan's style.