WARNING: I'm not an experienced movie buff, so this might sound like nonsense, but....
Hi everyone! I have been lurking around these forums as a non-member for the past few months. Now, with Interstellar about to be launched (pun intended), I can't help but join in the pre-launch discussions!
Here's my two cents about Interstellar's mixed critical reception:
amazing. The best is for it to get a 75% Certified Fresh. Reason: don't you realise that 100% critic-approved films of the 21st century are just so...
boring? Limpeh tell you now, all the super high rated films I've seen have really failed to make an impression! For example, I saw X Men: DOFP while high and was completely blown away. But after seeing it a second time sober, it's just...boring.
Yup!
Sorry to all the DOFP fans, but its just an average movie la. I mean, Limpeh know the acting is supergood, the story is exciting and Michael Fassbender is on a psycho bender, but habis semuanya, its just another action movie about good overcoming evil. The efforts of idealism trump our darker sides! Eh please la...which movie hasn't told me this before? So...I regret to say...I have forgotten that movie. It hasn't found a place in my heart. Its wandering the streets now crying "ZenmasterYap, Zenmaster, bring me home!"
Then there's Edge of Tomorrow...pretty wicked, very impressive for Limpeh, butttttttt....ultimately hollow. It had an interesting plot with chop chop bang bang whoaaaaaahhh performances from Mr. Cruise and Ms. Blunt but again, a man pushes past his shortcomings to become better - something we've all seen and heard before.
But you know what? Critics love these films because they fulfill the criteria that make a widely acceptable, entertaining movie: neat plot, neat and familiar ideas, neat acting that neatly creates characters who neatly further the plot. Which coincidentally, my brain will neatly chuck in the discard pile.
ON THE OTHER HAND, Interstellar seems to be polarising critics because really, with a story centering around gravitational singularities, how are you supposed to please everyone? A combo of neatness approach (as I elaborated) simply won't work because that would cause the movie to lose its sense of operatic wonder. I mean seriously, how is Mr. Caine supposed to react to Mr. Matthew's "I've got kids, professor"? What's he gonna say, "Well, I understand, but you must grasp the situation here. The world is about to end etc etc"? NO, BECAUSE THAT'S BORING. This is an opera, this is an epic, this is IMAX-fueled popcorn flavoured cocaine! Of course Mr. Caine's proper reply should be "So go out there and save them!"
"Love is the only thing that transcends space and time!" "Rage, rage against the dying of the light!" etc etc..Nolan did say that he wanted to craft an out of proportion entertaining BUT meaningful film. And finally, about the plot: I can already imagine what the plot holes may be, but 1.) Which movie doesn't have plot holes? 2.) A neat, understandable plot ain't the kind that puts us in the seat of a spaceship and through a gravitational singularity. No matter which way you slice it, subjectivity melts faster than microwaved mozarella when you jump space and time. And here, Mr. Nolans' aesthetic exegesis is reality blown out of reality into IMAX proportions: which necessitates realistic set pieces and serious scientific theory, but eventually a departure into great exaggeration, melodrama and psychedelia to express the human condition amidst fantastic cosmic phenomena.
If Mr. Nolan had made a more serious and subtle film, critics will complain that it fails as a blockbuster, it lacks a connection with the audience and that the huge vistas and mega ideas drown out the too-subtle humans. People will fall asleep in the cinema. But on the other hand, Nolan gives us melodrama and simple, understandable characters against a vast backdrop plus a touch of insane ideas, and critics complain that its a movie that's confused.
Well, ultimately this is what I think: Nolan gives us cinematic fare that is way beyond the norm, but whether or not it works, we'll have to judge for ourselves. And even if it doesn't, he still deserves props for trying to make a different kind of blockbuster. One that satisfies both commercial entertainment needs and poses important questions about our place on earth and in the universe.
I find it very uncanny that way before Trailer#2 launched, at ComicCon, Mr. Matthew said of Mr. Nolan: "He's a man whose reach constantly exceeds his grasp. With this film, that's true. This is by far the most ambitious film Nolan has ever directed.”
Let's watch this when its officially released worldwide. Safe to say, it will either be a Great Film, or a great film.
