Interstellar (2014)
Last Watch Date - November 24, 2022
Total Times Watched - Once
Comments
This is obviously a big movie that had a huge amount of hype and praise. Usually those don't live up to it and I'm not sure this one quite did. LET ME EXPLAIN.
This movie is long. It's an "epic" movie, but it FEELS long, particularly when you get near the end. Man does it drag on. If they trimmed off the last 30 or so minutes, it would've felt better and tighter. They leave it on a bit of a cliffhanger of sorts anyway, so why not do that earlier and save some runtime? Maybe other people aren't as sensitive to that type of thing as I am but it ran for 169 minutes.
The acting is as good as you'd expect from the people in it. There are a couple bits there where I think both McCanaughey and Hathaway go a bit too hard and it comes off phony, but overall it's solid. Jessica Chastain was ok. Topher Grace was Topher Grace. The late scenes for Michael Caine were not very good. John Lithgow was fine in his brief appearance.
There's a bit of silliness to this movie with the robots. I'm not sure why they were included as they were. They had a UI like something from 1975, but a very human voice with the ability to make jokes and have a sense of humor. Their motion was really bizarre. It felt like a way to get them out of some tight spots without having to make the humans "superhuman." I'm not sure which is worse. They also serve a purpose of .. well I guess I can't say because it would be too spoiler-filled. Let me just leave it in the "deus ex machina" realm.
Given the runtime of this movie, the pacing is generally fine. It gets really grim near the end as I said, but up until that point, it's not bad enough to be noticeable. There are parts that to go on a bit too long that I think are striving for the emotional or human element, but it's not necessary in all of those places. The motives and laments are beaten to death in this and overall are NOT satisfying by the end. So drop some of those emotional scenes and tighten this bad boy up!
Ultimately it's a pretty interesting sci-fi flick. I highly doubt I'll ever watch it again, but I don't regret watching it.
Recommended?
If you have what feels like 30 days to kill and have nothing else to watch, sure. There's nothing groundbreaking or overly interesting here, but it's on the low side of good.
