Decent Visuals but very lazy story telling...

Rating: 5/10 (11 November 2014)

Firstly, I quite like the movie in terms of visuals and the sound track. About 10 minutes in though, I find myself wishing for sub-titles as the actors' voices are inaudible. (I like MM but where is Clooney when we need him?)
Now, the story idea is not half bad except Nolan misunderstood the meaning of Sci-Fi...the fiction part of 'Science Fiction' refers to the science portion of a narrative, not the human story. Leaps of faith can be justified with stretching science, especially in areas not fully understood/known by people. The human part of the story has to be true for the audience to relate to (unless there is a setting in the story for human evolution that makes them different to what we are now.)
Too many illogical human behaviours are just strung together to move this along and I believe Nolan hoped that the great visuals will distract us from thinking about what is going on. I will highlight a few that ruined the movie for me, even though plenty more were present. Watch out...spoilers below!
1)Murph had experienced the 'ghost' from a young age yet didn't know who it might be; yet, when we find out that the 'ghost' is Cooper, she suddenly comes to the same realisation?!? That is of course essential to the story or otherwise she will not take what he transmits seriously, yet there is no reason for her to link the 'ghost' to her father. He could have easily added a message of 'This is your dad' to her, but he never did; and even if he had, it wouldn't work with the younger Murph...if he had located the older Murph (when she was retrieving her stuff), then maybe it will make more sense...very lazy story telling here as it could have been easy to add (maybe 20 seconds of screen time?). This one thing is key to the later part of the movie and without it; the movie couldn't go along the lines it did.
2)Assuming we accept that Tor and Cooper did work out the mystery of the black hole that relates to their calculation and he transmitted all the data through her watch. Even if she did figure out that it's a message from her dad (or from someone important), she wasn't paying attention to the message. It is like tuning in to a radio talk show (on serious maths no less) mid-way through a program, there is no way for her to decipher the full message if she missed the first large chunk of what was sent.
3)He knew that the message 'Stay' wouldn't work to keep him on the ground. Shouldn't he try a different message? Of course, that would change history and likely Nolan didn't want to go near this paradox...but this is Sci-Fi and I'd welcome the debate that would bring...instead, he rehashes the same old, knowing it wouldn't work.
4)Young Murph was understandably upset with her dad when he left...but she becomes part of mission control? Hang on...she has firsthand knowledge of what her father is up to... she knows about plan A, Plan B and the importance of the mission...yet, she wouldn't send him a message? If she became someone outside the scientific field, I can at least accept her continued anger, but putting her in mission control makes it unacceptable. (She should at least be so upset that she wants no part of a mission control which sent her dad away. Otherwise, she should understand why he had to go. )
5) Murph has a space station named after her so she has some cloud on 'her' space station. When she suggested that Coop goes to Brand, she could help with getting him a spacecraft. Instead, he had to steal one...really? Security is not a concern in the future? A guy who has been out of the loop for almost a century just walks into and starts up a craft, knows all the correct codes to open air locks and even the way out?? (Maybe unlike now, aerospace technology does not improve in a century?)
The above really killed the movie for me.
Sidenotes:
A) If according to their plan, skimming just outside the gravity field to go into the water planet quickly, they surely didn't spend 3+ hours there. How did it translate to 23 years? (Well, I spent almost 3 hours watching this nonsense, so maybe it is possible. Not in the way it was shown though.)
B) If all of Cooper's electronics failed on entering the black hole, how did TOR survive? TOR is fully electronics! Poor story telling as this could be explained under sci-fi rules yet wasn't done.
C) Why would Murph travel 2 years to the space station, with all her family in tow, to visit her father...yet on seeing him, sends him away?
D) Dr Mann and Cooper walked to the edge of the cliff...yet Brand takes a few minutes on a spacecraft to reach there? She took so long that Dr Mann had the time to WALK back to the station to board the other spacecraft, before they FLY back. Ridiculous! (Nolan, this is not a commercial flight... flying cannot be so much slower than walking by any stretch of the imagination.)
Overall, without a logical human story, Interstellar is just a decent visual and sound show...its almost 3 hours play time is too long when audience is not absorbed into the tale.
I gave it a 5 because I did enjoy some part of the movie (the effects and sound), otherwise, it would get a 3.5 out of 10. Almost 3 hours in a cinema is way too much for this lazily told story. (Plus, there's a chance you'll age 23 years.) I sure wouldn't watch it again.