Another bloated, overrated space epic

Rating: 4/10 (14 January 2017)

Another outer space film from Hollywood, this time directed by INCEPTION's Christopher Nolan. Thankfully it's better than the overrated GRAVITY, but INTERSTELLAR soon turns out to be overrated in turn. It seems that as soon as a film comes out these days with a half intelligent premise, critics and audiences lap it up and rate it as one of the best ever. INTERSTELLAR is far from that. It has plenty of interesting moments, but the overlong running time is padded and bloated with endless sentimentalism and extraneous characters.
It also takes a heck of a lot of time for anything to actually happen. Matthew McConaughey is all earnestness as the protagonist and comes across as a dullard; Anne Hathaway's character is completely extraneous and lacking in charisma. Only old timers like John Lithgow and Michael Caine shine, although Wes Bentley is underutilised in his role. An unexpected appearance from Matt Damon is undoubtedly the story's highlight.
For much of the running time this follows the template of a typical space adventure, but around the middle part of the film it starts to get weighed down with endless CGI effects and the whole end part of the production gets muddled and predictable in equal measure, coming across like a rip off of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY but not nearly as good.