INTERSTELLAR (C+)

Bottom Line: Huge in scope and visually stunning, this 2001: A Space Odyssey meets Inception meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind meets Contact meets The Sixth Sense by way of Gravity hybrid is, unfortunately, ambitious-to-a-fault – a semi-derivative and slightly pretentious film that stomps its feet and demands to be taken serious. It’s a thick-as-molasses, sci-fi blockbuster that feels like Christopher Nolan added both entertaining and unnecessary layers to a carelessly mocked-up script penned by M. Night Shyamalan after M. Night swiped a doodled on cocktail napkin from the estate of the late Stanley Kubrick. McConaughey delivers a solid performance as a father driven to the stars and grounded by his family – a man ping-ponging between life altering choices for the greater good. There do exist a fair amount of interesting themes on parenting, technology, space travel and the theory of relativity – most of that overtly scientific, fifth dimensional, wormholian babble, however, is drowned out by an exorbitantly overlong running time and a violently overbearing IMAX-infused musical score (the kind of sound that’ll make your ears, jaw and bass-chattering teeth beg for the deep, cold silence of space). Big, bold, boisterous, bland and occasionally boring – this epic journey to infinity and beyond lacked a fully satisfying emotional core that kept it from being out of this world.

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain and Michael Caine
Directed by: Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Trilogy, Memento, Inception, Insomnia and The Prestige)
Rated: PG-13
Running time: 169 minutes
Studio description: With our time on Earth coming to an end, a team of explorers undertakes the most important mission in human history; traveling beyond the galaxy to discover whether mankind has a future among the stars. © Paramount

Official site: www.interstellar.withgoogle.com