Rattling good sci-fi hokum - enjoy and stop quibbling

Rating: 7/10 (25 September 2015)

Reading the reviews here on IMDb as I do after watching a film, I am yet again surprised at how many of those posting them seem to forget that films are primarily intended as entertainment. OK, it's not pure science but as entertainment Christopher Nolan's Interstellar scores heavily: it's got most of what you need. There's intrigue, a daft but not too daft plot, humour, suspense, sentiment, loads and loads of hokum – boy do we love hokum – and, as this is sci-fi, loads of pseudo-science.
On top of all that, there's impressive cinematography and special effects (though the score isn't up to much, I have to admit). So of those who criticise Interstallar for being scientific gobbledegook I would respond: would you really criticise a Porsche sports car for not making a great cup of coffee? Yes, the science is hokum and you don't have to be a scientist to know that. But that really isn't the point.
I'm not an unreserved Christopher Nolan fan and I thought his Batmans to be ponderous and even rather dull. But the lad does know how to conjure up a spectacle and here he does it in spades. There's also a rather touching story of how a father keeps his promise to his daughter and enough middle-brow profundity to satisfy most adolescents of all ages.
There a far more respectable sci-fi films dealing with similar subject matter – Jodie Foster's Contact is a good example – but, to get back to my first point, Nolan's Interstellar is intended as entertainment and in that respect it fires on all cylinders.
So ignore the geeks who point out that 'what they do is impossible' – of course it is. But that's not the point. Just enjoy the ride. And if, like me, you come close to shedding a quiet tear at the end when Dad (at the centre of a black hole, no less, several million light years away in a different galaxy) manages to communicate – by Morse code – with the young daughter (back on Earth in real time) whose heart he broke when he first agreed to star in Nolan's epic – sorry, travel into space to save mankind – you can be sure the film ain't at all bad. Which it isn't.
If you want science, go off and study science while we get on with enjoying the film.