Review of Interstellar (2014) by Mahmus — 03 Oct 2019

I am really not a fan of this movie.

The visuals are great and I'm sure the science is very accurate and that's very impressive... but the writing is total mess.

I never liked how Cooper completely ignores his son Tom, who he clearly loves less than Murph. I never liked Brand's awful monolgue about love. I get that she's supposed to be wrong and irrational and over-emotional in this scene (isn't she supposed to be a scientist?), but she's proven right in the end, which just sucks for so many reasons. I mean, they seriously made the only female scientist on board be the one that almost jeopardizes the mission because she gets emotional and misses her boyfriend. Yikes.

I never liked dialogue. I've always had a problem with how Nolan movies are written. Full of endless exposition and corny speeches that are meant to be deep, and this is no different.

The following is an actual conversatiom from the movie:

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COOPER: All of this, is one little girl's bedroom, every moment! It's infinitely complex! They have access, to infinite time and space, but they're not bound by anything! They can't find a specific place in time, they can't communicate. That's why I'm here. I'm gonna find a way to tell Murph, just like I found this moment.

TARS: How, Cooper?

COOPER: Love, TARS, love.

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This movie wants to be 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it feels like Nolan didn't trust the audience to be smart enough to understand the film like Kubrick did, so instead of conveying its themes and science visually like 2001, he makes the characters constantly explain the science to the audience and give long speeches about whatever he's trying to say. It's like he thinks we're babies or something.

I like most Nolan films, but this just feels like he didn't respect the viewer's intelligence enough, and it turns what could have been a poetic space epic into a bunch of boring characters telling us what's going on at all times.