Great visual effects, but shallow story

Rating: 5/10 (6 May 2015)

To me, the movie has two major aspects - one being the tremendous visual effects and camera perspectives in space which would make it really worth watching it if it wasn't for - two the very flat character development and the quite shallow dialogs.
I do like Science Fiction movies in general but this one really didn't get the balance right. It should've been either less science or less fiction. Several things disturbed me when watching it, e.g. why would you need an entire rocket to leave earth when you can leave bigger planets with a small spaceship with no difficulties? The character development and the dialogs really disappointed me. It is very melodramatic and incomprehensible. Why would a daughter be angry with her dad for 40 years and still react like a 10-year-old? Why would a scientist give a long speech about the multidimensionality of love to convince other scientist to go to one planet or the other.
The visual effects, though are outstanding and I would definitely watch a movie of like 30 minutes just of the space footage. But that doesn't get you over three hours.
That's another point. Recent movies tend to be longer and longer when they don't have to. It doesn't help neither the story nor the suspense to have it made this long.
All in all, in my opinion, the movie is overestimated and if it wasn't for the visual effects I would definitely not recommend watching it.