I Question Humanities Future Based On The Reviews This Movie Is Getting...

Rating: 1/10 (11 November 2014)

This movie is genius... What? Seriously? First off, possible spoilers, although I'm mostly going to try to avoid them. Second off, SERIOUSLY??? Third, it's not really a one star movie. It's like 5-7ish depending on how you want to weight various factors. I'm just doing this because all the hype, and all the "stellar" (pun intended) reviews are blowing my mind and need to be balanced out.
This movie is OK. I'm a sci-fi geek, and an apocalypse movie geek. This was kind of supposed to have both, so how could I go wrong? Easily apparently. If you like movies that actually make sense, this film is not for you.
If you have any common sense or a logical brain you'll know what I mean when you see it. For me this film falls into the "big flashy substance free summer blockbuster" category, aside from the fact that it was released in fall. If you like big flashy special effects movies with no substance you'll probably love it, because you're OK with just going for the ride. If you like movies that make sense and have cohesive plots, you will likely be irritated when this strays from those lofty goals... And stray it does. A lot. He TRIED to make a great movie, but ended up with one that doesn't quite get there.
This movie, like so many movies with generally promising plots falls down all over the place in the execution... Or more specifically, the script itself. Special effects were killer with lots of great visuals. All the "directing" portions of the movie were well done. So I suppose I can say Nolan did a great job directing the movie. All the actors were just fine... The problem was with what they were told to act out. So Nolan did not do a good job as writer. Perhaps he should stick to directing which he is quite good at.
Let me say this, I'm NOT a pompous, arrogant guy in real life. But sometimes I wonder if having a couple dozen IQ points over average just RUINS films for me. So many movies have everything this one does. Good basic premise. Good acting. Great special effects. Horrible scripts that make absolutely no sense for anyone with a brain.
So where to begin? In my opinion a huge percentage of movies, especially sci-fi, require that you accept a basic premise. Many of them do not make sense. This can be OK. You just have to roll with it even if it's a little off. Think zombie movies. I love zombies... But really with the setup/explanation of how most zombie viruses spread, and how awesome our military is, and how slow zombies are (or even if they're fast zombies), it's a ridiculous premise. The mess would last about a week, and then get under control. How exactly does a zombie take out an Abrams tank again??? But I roll with it.
This movie's basic premise is slightly flawed, but not so much so that it HAS to completely ruin the movie. There are cases where the basic idea is so bad I can't get past it, but this isn't one. Earth is basically overwhelmed by bad weather, and crop killing plagues. It happens in real life. The Dust Bowl was rough, and so was the Irish potato famine. The truth is that we could deal with those easily on Earth, but let us pretend we couldn't and move on.
My problem is with the endless series of things that either outright don't make any sense, or things where you have to stretch it pretty far mentally and basically "cover up" for the writing by buying into implausible, silly reasons for things. How exactly does everyone still drive around gas guzzling trucks, and yet are enthralled by a few small solar panels they can pull off of a UAV? How do they have all this infrastructure for pointless things, yet they can't keep control of said UAV, or like make parts for their robotic farm equipment they rig up from scraps? That's the first like 2 seconds of the movie. This movie is a death of a thousand cuts. Going point by point would take way too long.
In my opinion this movie didn't have any "deal killer" plot holes. As in no one thing completely made my head instantly explode. But what did happen was by the end of the 2nd hour there were so many little silly things piling up that it just went beyond the pale. There's plenty to be desired in terms of the time dilation stuff making sense, but most of it does if you think it through logically and do the math. Perhaps not 100% though. To me it just had a general vibe of meh with a lot of little stuff.
Then there's the non logical portion of the story, AKA the human story, also being meh. It's like they kind of want you to think Cooper and Brand had a love thing maybe? Or at least Cooper does for her... But then no development. But then he rushes off at the end after her... Is that a platonic hero thing, or was that supposed to be the big romance story? You don't even know because it was such a mess. It's not that the actors couldn't have acted it out fine, but it just doesn't happen. I found myself not really caring about any of them much because none of them were developed. Cooper was a pretty cool dude, but other than that I didn't take a lot away.
That's it. I'm done typing. In short feel free to watch it, but just be forewarned if you have an analytical mind that you will find many portions of the movie causing minor brain aneurysms.