What is with the critics

Rating: 9/10 (8 November 2014)

"I have enormously enjoyed... Star Trek and the Lucus/Spielberg epics,...But, these works are fantasy, not science fiction", Arthur C. Clark from 'The Songs of Distant Earth' notes. This movie is not science fantasy but as close to science fiction as 2001. What I will try to do is compare it to other science fiction movies.
The movie "Contact" hits the mark pretty close but fails to explain the science but gets the hysteria pretty good. This goes further and really makes the laws of relativity part of the story.
This also does not go to much into "Man is bad and ruined the earth", which so many movies tend to do.
I really did feel I was reading a Arthur Clark novel. It gives enough of the character so you will care for the them but does not gloss over on the science.
Gravity was another good science fiction movie but since it takes place in our time it makes it an easy target for the people who know something about NASA and the other space programs to nit pick at. This has a setting I would assume to be 50 to 75 years in the future where there are advancements but nothing that can't be explained.
If you are looking for a movie like Armageddon, in which the producers wrapped it in rock music video instead of picking up a High School physics book, then this movie is not for you. If you are looking for a move like Event Horizon, which by its name seems to talk about relativity but sucks it self into a horror move, then this move is not for you.
Don't get me wrong it is not like you can't nick pick this movie, including the science, but they did a great job. I would say the worst part of the movie was Matthew McConaughey's Daughter.
Finally, I thought the movie flowed well, never staying to long in one place. This was an adventure first, story telling second, and science fiction third. And if you think about it it should be that way. As George Lucas said "A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing", to bad he did not take his own advise.