MOVIE REVIEWS: INTERSTELLAR

The reviews for Christopher Nolan’s space epic Interstellar, starring Matthew McConaughey, have not been exactly out of this world, but they have for the most part given it a lift. Most of the critics award Nolan an "A" — for ambition. They agree that there are a lot of impressive visuals in the movie. "Even as Interstellar becomes a beautiful mess, its wannabe-deep impact will hit everyone differently," comments Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News. Claudia Puig in USA Today remarks that the movie is "sometimes riveting and thought-provoking, but also plodding and hokey and not as visionary as its cutting-edge special effects." Other critics suggest that Nolan may have been overly ambitious. "There’s only so much you can pile on the pie plate before it starts spilling rhubarb on the floor," writes Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune. But A.O. Scott in the New York Times argues that Nolan’s sizable fan base will not be disappointed with the overflowing servings. Nolan, he writes, "does not so much transcend genre conventions as fulfill them with the zeal of a true believer. It may be enough to say that "Interstellar" is a terrifically entertaining science-fiction movie, giving fresh life to scenes and situations we’ve seen a hundred times before, and occasionally stumbling over pompous dialogue or overly portentous music." The film also has produced some extreme reactions. On the one hand, there’s Lou Lumenick of the New York Post who calls the movie, "a soulful, must-see masterpiece, one of the most exhilarating film experiences so far this century." But Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal concludes that much of the movie — and especially the ending — makes little sense. "It’s mumbo without jumbo," he writes.