An infuriating feat of modern cinema

Rating: 6/10 (16 December 2014)

At just under 3-hours, you actually want less of Interstellar, which somehow manages to be simultaneously elegant and turgid. Nolan takes us on a massively epic adventure into the unknown, matched only by my journey from awe to frustration while watching it.
Make no mistake, this movie is a massive accomplishment. Visually, it is one of the greatest cinematic feats to date. Interstellar is worth the price of IMAX admission on its stunning portrayal of space alone. The much-hyped black hole is everything we might've hoped for; one can almost feel its gravity drawing you in. The story is similarly expansive. We are taken first to a dying Earth where humanity's sentiments are all too resonant today: constantly looking at our feet, never looking up to stars and reaching out. The dystopia on Earth is every bit as masterfully realized as space, with dust clouds and blight slowly killing off life. The plea emanating from this movie is well-put, emphatically-made and timeless: always reach into the unknown, because to stop wondering and moving is to die. Such a dire message can only be delivered by feeling characters, something that Nolan has often struggled with in the past. Not here, as McConaughey (Coop) and Chastain (Murph) deliver the kind of rich, moving performances we've come to expect from them. Even Hathaway (Brand), though sometimes grating, drives home mankind's terrified desperation. The acting is superb, and the script is rife with genuine emotional hot spots. You feel the grandeur of space, yet are often enough drawn back to the humanity of the story. The insistence on portraying accurate physics actually does a lot of the work in bridging this gap, particularly with the awesome use of relativity to age characters at different speeds. The knowledge that the physics in these moments is real haunts and evokes an even greater sense of urgency. Which is to say that Interstellar, at its best, is utterly phenomenal. Nolan in many ways has drawn even closer to that elusive goal of his: make a thought-provoking, intellectually-rich blockbuster.
Of course, no space epic can be discussed without some talk of 2001, but Interstellar is especially deserving of the comparison. It's interesting that Nolan does the most work to dispel the notion that his characters are Kubrick-esque in a movie that pays so much tribute to a Kubrick masterpiece. The similarities between Interstellar and 2001 are beyond superficial, and even Interstellar's differences often seem to be calling out to 2001. The blaring organ motif repeated throughout the movie is an obvious reference to 2001's opening symphony, while the shots of various vessels "dancing" in space to classical music pays homage to some of 2001's most memorable space scenes. When Coop is descending into the black hole, the shot goes so far as to recreate the descent into Jupiter in 2001. Nolan's insistence on emotional resonance seems like a direct response to his associations with Kubrick, whose 2001 features especially cold and detached characters. When Nolan shows you a crying Matt Damon coming out of cryosleep, or all-knowing robots with humor and discretion, it seems like a deliberate reversal of Kubrick's characters. It's hard, with so parallels and tributes, to not interpret Interstellar in the context of it's predecessor, and it almost seems as Nolan is asking us to. Both movies address mankind's drive to evolve and survive by reaching out into the void. And though the stories told within the events of the movies are wholly different, the narratives are the same: motivation, exploration, struggle, acceptance, transcendence.
Interstellar masterfully executes the first 3 parts of that narrative, which makes it all the more infuriating when the movie goes off the rails. What had been a stunning and moving journey over the first 2 hours of the quickly devolves into absurdity, even by the standards of science fiction, spurred by Nolan's all-too-familiar insistence on overbearing exposition. Early on, that exposition mostly manifests itself through scientific technicalities that draw us into the movie's world. But when the "science" stops being science, the exposition becomes not only a nuisance, but an insult. When we consider what makes 2001 a masterpiece, we point to its subtlety and its insistent call for us to interpret and ponder. Mankind's evolution and transcendence in those final scenes is overwhelming and exhausting, but significant through its urgent plea for reflection. Nolan takes us through the same sequence of events, but we come out on the other side not with powerful sense of self-awareness, but an overwrought explanation of everything that has happened with ridiculous plot devices. The movie was at its best when we felt the threat of an unknown future, but at the end of it all, Interstellar leaves us with no room for thought, no room for interpretation, no subtlety. The things that made the movie so great get washed away when it seems to devolve into Nolan's personal interpretation of 2001. Which means that the final parts of this movie, a few brilliant moments aside, completely stagnate. They stop telling the story, and instead simply tell you what to think. That complete lack of tact is Nolan at his absolute worst.
And that leaves us with a movie that starts out so rich, and ends so hollow. This isn't to say that Interstellar should be 2001, or even do the same things as 2001. Kubrick's masterpiece is certainly not for everyone, and Nolan's Interstellar is designed for mass appeal first and foremost. But it's too obsessed with its ancestor to not draw comparison, and utterly disappointing when you do. The final 45 minutes of this movie are beyond absurd, where what was a well-told story all its own is almost completely toppled by Nolan's pompousness. I say almost, because nothing can totally ruin the fact that the first 2 hours of this movie are completely worth the effort.