Interstellar (2014) 👍

Interstellar is many things: a mediocre sci-fi story, a timely study of sociopathy, a schmaltzy meandering about love conquering space and time, an excellent showcase of near-future space engineering, and, sadly, a big budget Hollywood movie that grossly underestimates its audience. Foreshadowing is one thing, having one astronaut do the punch-a-hole-though-a-folded-piece-of-paper schtick to another while they are in space on their way to a wormhole as part of a billion dollar secret mission… Well, that’s a whole new level of cringe.¹

Hollywood rears its head in many other places, most of all the needless addition of superficial suspense to things that don’t need added suspense. Because a father communicating with his estranged daughter through spacetime is not emotional enough, let’s also add a hick brother who doesn’t want her at the only place where communication is possible, and may kick her out at any moment. Decades are spent on trying to get humans off Earth, yet the big scientific breakthrough comes at the very last moments, as people are suffocating on the ground. While we are there: if the human civilization is capable of building a county-sized space habitat and the only problem is getting the thing off the ground, why not build it on Earth or under the sea, instead of using a few hundred frozen embryos as humanity’s only backup plan? But let’s not get into plot holes because, um, there are a few.

Which is to say that Interstellar is not an overwhelmingly good movie. The good, however, still outweighs the bad, especially for those willing to forgive all the pandering. The best of humanity is also the worst of it, and the best of American sci-fi in matters of technology also turns out to be some of the worst story-wise. So it goes…