So I had a lot of extra time the last couple of days and decided to revisit 2 Christopher Nolan films that I HATED when I first saw, and give them an updated review. Actually I don’t even remember if I bothered reviewing them here. I’ll start with interstellar today.
Interstellar (2014) 5.7/8
I can see all sides of the feelings about this movie. I detested it when I saw it in imax when it came out. Others said it was the best sci-fi film of all time. After my rewatch, I’m just in between and I’ll tell you why.
For me it felt like Nolan had way too much going on with the movie. He had so many ideas he wanted to put in the movie, it became somewhat of a jumbled mess. The things he wanted done in the movie he did very well, but it could have been more focused and refined to create a more fluid STORY.
He wanted “Love” to be this force that can travel through the universe and save humanity. So he does an excellent job of building the relationship between Cooper and Murph. Mconnehey blows it out of the water and you really feel the strong force guiding his decisions.
He wanted it to be a super accurate depiction of science and the real world applications of what we know about space, time, physics, all that astronaut jargon. It’s all mind bendingly accurate and interesting. Hard to follow at times, but most of it checks out.
He wanted an edge of your seat special effects space thriller and he does that better than almost anyone in the industry. The worlds they travel to are all jaw dropping, visually. Space sequences should remind you of Kubrics 2001 space odyssey. Kudos to him and his team for that epic aspect of the movie. Matt Damon’s mutiny. Waves crashing. Spaceship ‘splosions. Yay action!
He also wanted science fiction parts thrown in that forced you to make giant leaps in logic. Flying directly into a black hole. Aliens? Time travel (I know I know, relativity). Portal to weird childhood room bookshelf Morris code ghost past/future/whatever sequence. Great concept for sure.
But to throw all of it together just seems too much for one film. Too long with too many long winded scenes of dialogue trying to explain things. All those different parts he wanted, feel like the different parts of putting together a jigsaw puzzle. A LARGE 5,000 piece puzzle. In a not so pleasant way. Like you start with the edge pieces, yeah great those fit together nicely and the process is smooth. Then you start piecing together parts that you recognize like same colors or distinct items. Moving along well. Now maybe you start referring to the picture on the box to piece together the more difficult parts. Still making progress but it’s becoming more like work. Then you reach a point where you can’t make out any of the graphics on the pieces leftover. They’re not fitting so well, and the colors are all blending together with no distinct differences. Does it fit here? Does it go next to the tigers tail, or is it a part of the leaf in the corner? So you just start saying **** it and randomly trying to fit each individual piece, in each slot but there’s still 700 pieces left in the box. Kinda messy, not the most fun, but it’s a well made beautiful looking puzzle you just know it.
THAT’s what I got out of the film. Well made, but I wouldn’t dare call it one of the best sci-fi movies ever made. And Nolan has made far better movies. But not the worst movie ever, like I initially thought. Thanks for listening to me dig up the past. Dunkirk review next.