Surprised that the studios went ahead and made this movie, but I'm glad they did...!

Rating: 7/10 (15 November 2014)

Let me start by saying that this is a very fascinating movie and has the quintessential 'Christopher Nolan' stamp all over. I have always liked how Nolan builds his movies. He has a gift. One only needs to remember Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, Inception and now Interstellar. There will always be a debate after a movie like Interstellar if this is the best one from Nolan ever or was it Inception. Personally I feel that Inception was pretty remarkable. It was not an easy concept and was rendered remarkably on the screen but then that was Inception and this review is not about it
Coming back to Interstellar- I was not able to see the movie as soon as it came out. A lot of people beat me to it and gave me rave reviews – "must watch", "filmmaking at its best", "remarkable" and so on. A significant number of them are not into science fiction at all and so all this galvanized me into action. Being wary of 'spoilers' I read as little about the movie as possible (online and print). Today I corrected that anomaly and find myself quite amused at the end of it all.
Interstellar is a very fascinating movie. I went to see the movie with my better half and though I enjoyed the ride she was lost halfway through the movie though she has a decent appreciation of science fiction genre. I found myself explaining some concepts to her after the movie but I realized that it had not worked for her the way it had for me.
The movie starts with a basic dooms day scenario but that is the only thing 'basic' about the movie. The special effects are decent and the physics (+metaphysics) in there is challenging to say the least and that is when I feel that I have a special taste/appetite for this kind of stuff. For example the movie contains concepts like wormhole/time dilation/black hole/extra dimensional beings and lots of metaphysics thrown in for a good measure. The movie uses the 'Gravity' as a catch all explanation and does a less than adequate job of explaining it for the uninitiated. Hence many viewers may view that as stretching of scientific concepts. This is not a movie that may endear itself in first go. Even those with a more than normal understanding of the concepts involved therein may have to read a bit more and then go in for a 2nd viewing to appreciate it more adequately.
This is where the most interesting part comes in- the hullabaloo about the movie. Majority of the people I know who are praising this movie to high heavens would find themselves sufficiently challenged if I was to ask them to state Newton's 3 laws of motion. I am reminded of something I read a long time ago – A Classic is a book that everyone talks about but nobody ever reads. At some point a certain view (right or wrong is important only in retrospect) about this movie was formed by the first- goers and I feel that has become the consensus view by adoption and not based on experience for many viewers.
This movie affords an opportunity to pull up our understanding of some remarkable concepts in Physics that may be unfamiliar territory for many. By blindly praising the movie and not making an effort to understand the physics behind it is, if I can dare say, an insult to those involved in the making of this movie.