Interstellar

[RealityChuck]

I saw it this weekend and was very impressed. People talk about the science (which, while good in cosmology and physics, is so-so in biology), but the real strength is the human story, which is very touching and effective.

[Vic Sage]

When McConaghy is watching the taped messages from his son and daughter as they grow up without him, and then later, seeing his daughter think the worst of him, and then finally meeting her again at the end... well, i lost it. each time.

Most SF films don't bother with stuff like "character" or "emotional context". If you watch "2001" (which this movie sort of quotes, visually), you can see the stately, cerebral approach to SF is in this picture's DNA, but it goes beyond that. For an epic space/time picture, it spends its first hour or so on Earth, defining the stakes but, mostly, developing the characters, so you care about the outcome later on.

Without getting into all the timey wimey stuff, which always makes my head hurt, I thought the movie worked pretty darn well.

[Frayed Knot]

Got around to this one last week and I pretty much agree with the above opinions.
Growing up I thought of myself as a fan of Sci-Fi but then grew away from it as special effects seemed to take over, often in place of story, characters, plot, etc.
This flick, even though it obviously uses effects to tell the story, it doesn't do so in place of everything else.

[Edgy MD]

I appreciate the ambition. The long prologue in particular was courageous. But the execution didn't add up for me.

I was really, really undone by the sound on this thing. Between the mumbling, the jargon, the slurring of Matthew McConaughey's accent, and Hans Zimmer's bombastic scoring, we kept having to stop the thing and replay it. Eventually, my wife demanded we set it to play back with subtitles.

The fate of humanity is at stake, and you're in a command situation. Speak up and speak clearly.