[YMS] So I just saw Interstellar and I have mixed feelings about it.
If the only factor in this review was what I saw visually, then I would give this a 10/10.
With Christopher Nolan he has such healthy blend of practical and computer generated effects
that it's often hard to tell which is which.
Part of what I love about him is that whenever he has the opportunity to use a practical effect
over a computer generated one he'll take it.
And when he executes a practical effect he does not skimp out.
There's a scene in which the truck goes off the dirt path and runs through a cornfield.
If the same script was handed to a different director
it's difficult to imagine that it would have been done with as much effort.
With Christopher Nolan you could see the path being created by the vehicle in many overhead shots.
And because it's a practical effect you have a limited amount of opportunities to get the shot just right.
Many directors would show the truck going in to the cornfield
but then limit the shot to only being within the vehicle from that point on.
I'm happy to say that Christopher Nolan puts effort into the shots that he's filming
instead of taking the easy route.
I really loved the movie visually and I thought the concept was pretty cool,
but, alas, there are other aspects that make up a movie for me
and some of these aspects were not done as well.
Most of the performances were pretty great,
but unfortunately the child actor playing Murph had a few slip-ups.
Yes, she was able to cry from her tear ducts, but her performance was not really convincing.
During what should be crucial and emotional scenes, her emphasis and enunciation
was so off that I wasn't really able to get into them.
Matthew McConaughey's performance held up nicely, so those scenes weren't completely lost,
but it was distracting to have one performance stick out like that
when everyone else was doing so well.
The score by Hans Zimmer was pretty great as usual.
It's not his best score and it did get used pretty repetitively,
but it was pretty great overall.
I really liked the robots in the movie.
Now, I'm aware that the design of these robots is so incredibly impractical
that it would never happen in real life,
but it was cool to watch them perform different tasks and use their bodies
in sort of a Swiss army knife way.
Their characters were very humourous and added a lot to my enjoyment of the film.
And I'm a little forgiving when it comes to the impracticality of the design
because it is clearly an homage to the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Now I'm about to enter spoiler territory, so if you don't want to be spoiled -
skip to this part in the video. If you're on YouTube you should be able to click
an annotation to lead you to that point in the video.
I'm going to start spoiling shit in
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The biggest problem I have with this movie has to do with the script.
I can't think of a single other Christopher Nolan film that had so many moments
that I would call 'sappy'.
In many ways it seemed as though this story wasn't all that original.
It was clearly inspired from films like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Sunshine",
and I'm not sure I would call it better than either of those films.
Now, if you've seen any of my previous reviews,
it is quite the pet peeve of mine when love is used to save the day.
And in a Christopher Nolan movie I kind of expected better than that.
So when Anne Hathaway's character started speaking in a way that seemed as though
it was setting up some sort of future reincorporation saying:
"Oh, love transcends all dimensions!"
I was seriously hoping her character was just crazy, despite the tone of the movie
explicitly implying that it would be reincorporated seriously later.
Unfortunately, I was right and it was reincorporated later seriously.
When you're going to reincorporate something it's best if you can't call out
which scenes are going to be reincorporated before it happens.
Like, seriously, as soon as Anne Hathaway started talking about it,
all I could think was: "Oh God, please no."
Like, yeah, love is totally not a chemical reaction in our bloodstream that exists to coerce reproduction.
Love is magical and it transcends space and time!
Anybody that agreed with me that it was dumb in the movie "The Host"
should also agree that it's dumb in this movie as well.
And the worst part about them not only including but
reincorporating that line about love transcending dimensions,
is that the movie could have been the exact same without that ever being mentioned
and the logic would not have been changed at all.
I don't see how the film's logic would have made any more or less sense if they didn't mention that.
Like, when Matthew McConaughey was fucking around with the past,
he was attached to a specific room and not a person.
Like, if she didn't go back to that room as an adult then they would have been fucked.
Like, if love for your children was the determining factor in this space equation,
then shouldn't you have been attached to her and not a room?
I got the impression that the outcome of that scene depended on specific coordinates,
so I really don't see how love transcending dimensions had any effect on anything that happened.
Also, did no one find it weird how she immediately jumped to the conclusion "Oh, you're my ghost"?
Like, is there any person, especially a scientist, that would ever come up with that conclusion?
Like, of course nobody believed you!
There were no logical steps that would be taken to come up with that conclusion.
I just love it when characters pull things out of their asses that happened to be 100% fact
and ultimately decide the outcome of the film.
It never feels cheap at all no matter how many times it happens.
Anyway, I enjoyed the movie overall and I found it to be worth the price of admission.
If you find yourself heavily weighting a film's visual aestethic into your overall rating,
then go see this film and I'd imagine you'll really love it.
The small issues I had with the plot aren't bound to affect everyone, so go see the film and judge it for yourself.
Conceptually, I really loved what this movie did with time, and it made for some really emotional scenes.
Even though I thought this movie was visually fantastic, overall it didn't wow me in the way that I hoped it would.
That's pretty much all I've got to say about it for now.
I made this quick cause I'm working on a big YMS review for you guys, so stay tuned for that.
And I'm giving this one a 7/10.
[Mark] Put those sandals on.
[YMS] [Making dancing rythm noises] Hacha-cha, hacha-cha, hacha-cha.
[Bursts out laughing]
[Mark & YMS] Yeeeeaaaaahh!
[More shouting]
[YMS] Ha ha ha weeeeeeeeee ha ha [Mark] [Laughing]
[YMS] Acha-cha, hacha-cha.
[Mark] This is scary! [YMS] Aaaaah!
[YMS] What's happeniiiing?
[YMS] Gaaaaaaay of the year.