Interstellar

The trailer for this looked good. A sci-fi epic about humans trying to escape a dying Earth. Unfortunately, it was not good. Well not in my opinion. I swapped notes with a colleague who enjoyed it. She concentrated on the fact that there was proper human interest/relationships explored and yes that is true. And despite being the best part of 3 hours long I had no issue with that. Indeed possibly just because it was so long there were good bits and good ideas hidden amongst it.

My issues? Well human interest there was, and the big story is relationship between dad and daughter. That's my first problem. Just didn't seem a credible relationship - an overblown over-dramatic love and betrayal story. Just didn't ring true.

But by far the worst part is the utter preposterousness of the whole plot.

The Earth is becoming a dust bowl and short of food. Dad, an ex-NASA pilot but now corn farmer finds the co-ordinates of a secret NASA base based on binary code left in the dust on the floor of his daughter's bedroom. Ok, lets leave that leap. The father is on the spot recruited by aging science professor Michael Caine to join a mission through a wormhole that had conveniently opened up near Saturn into another galaxy where three previous astronauts had gone out on solo missions and found planets giving back promising signals. This mission was bringing out fertilized human cells to restart new colonies of human life in those planets, if they proved to be habitable. Meanwhile the station at NASA was being built to itself form an ark for the remaining population to fly into space and join them all in the neighbouring galaxy, if only the professor can work out some mathematical formula, which he is scrawling on a blackboard (as top modern scientists no doubt do).

The visit to the galaxy has the best bits, both in terms of the spectacular (a massive wave in a watery planet gives one quite an exciting roller-coaster ride) and the human side (Matt Damon is very good in his baddy role as the astronaut who had ended up on a frozen world but was sending back signals just so someone would rescue him, and does his best to kill off this little group to get back home himself).

But where it all goes wrong is the science bit - just so wholly unbelievable, simplistic tosh. People just throw in terms like time, gravity and black holes without the vaguest attempt to make any sense, as if they were just magic.Physics made into cosy Texan hokum. I won't spoil the ending except to say it takes one full circle and is cripplingly disappointing when I am sure in the director's mind it is terribly clever.

Three hours of my life I will never get back - and dinner was as a result a box of nachos.