We saw this yesterday at an industry screening on the giant IMAX screen at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood, followed by a Q&A featuring all the heavy hitters-- Christopher Nolan, Hans Zimmer, the production designer Nathan Crowley, DP, FX Supervisor, sound editors, etc, etc. It seems like all those poor schmucks up on stage really drank the KoolAid on this one.
On the positive side, it was a gorgeously made movie, and spectacular to see this 70MM print (NOT DIGITAL!!) on the giant IMAX screen. Ravishing design of the farmhouse (inexplicably stuck in the 1980's) as well as the various spacecrafts and their respective extraterrestrial worlds (actually Iceland, but still). As pure cinematic imagery, the 5th dimension sequence involving ribbons of light weaving together shards of the farmhouse rooms was lovely, and will last in our memory long after those sad two-dimensional cutouts they called characters ever would.
I was fine settling in for a grand slow-moving 3-hour epic. I was fine with minimal action in the first hour. (The young Murphy's performance was lovely here.) I was even fine with all the strands of pseudo-scientific gobbledygook, just as long as by the end of the 3 hours they would lock those strands together into a tale that made sense and would be worth our trouble. Far from it. Nearly every plot-turn turned out to be a red herring, bad guys were telegraphed a mile away, the final reels were drowned in nonsensical schmaltz, and we left the theater feeling like we'd been had.
I can't say I'm surprised-- haven't really been a fan of Nolan since his wonderful work in MEMENTO and THE PRESTIGE. What will really surprise me is if the Oscar-voting public drinks the KoolAid too and nominates this thing for anything other than its technical achievements. Those achievements are still great, though they're tethered to a property that could never get airborn.
Updated On: 11/16/14 at 04:02 PM
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