I was expecting to like this decently and had a fun little one liner planned as a review after a long work day, which is still in my tags. Now I actually feel the need to vent in frustration with both the film and apparently myself too. I'm going to be as respectful as I can here, considering how frustrated I feel with this watch. I really, really hope I won't lose followers over this, but this is probably one of the biggest disappointments that I've had in relation to my expectations in the near 5,000 films that I've graded. I guess this really goes to show that we all really do have our own unique perceptions of entertainment and certain things for which we don't align with the vast majority.

Very little of this registered with me at all in terms of the stakes feel, the emotional beat design, the character writing or the action plot development in space. The relentlessly minimalist score, slow pacing, joyless script and especially, the lack of distinct personality or charisma in the character writing really alienated me very quickly. I assumed that all of this would grow on me by the second act, but this lost me SO early on. I just couldn't ever recover, no matter how much I tried.

To be clear, I absolutely did not go into the process of watching a three hour film on a weeknight as some kind of hate watch or looking to be disappointed or go against the grain with hot takes. I had been excited to knock this one out for years now, but just never took the time. Nolan continues to be an odd bird of a director to me that I simply cannot pin down. He absolutely owns multiple perfect score graded films for me, but I don't at all consider him reliable or one of my favorite directors in general approach. Sometimes he feels to me like a brilliant master economist of watchable storytelling: The Dark Knight. Sometimes he feels to me like someone especially creative enough in premise design and world-building detail to overcome middling character writing: The Prestige, Inception. Other times, I think his work feels totally inscrutable and uninteresting to me: Dunkirk. Unlike Dunkirk, I was able to actually finish this film, but it literally never grabbed my interest after a first act which left me pretty quickly concerned with the script and character work. I figured things would come together for me when the film moved out of the bland dustbowl setting and into space, but it just didn't materialize for me.

I am going to keep my score above average on the recognition of the overall cast talent (less so the characters they portrayed), the outstandingly executed visuals, the assurance that nothing here outright offended me (well, maybe the ridiculous part with the school teaching moon landing conspiracy theory) and just that I did actually like this general premise on paper heading into the film. I don't know. I'm definitely a bit flabbergasted right now. I had a hard time following the plot points once they hit space (even the Wikipedia plot summary reads back like a foreign language) and just couldn't find enough of a vibe with the characters or mood created to enjoy the film as pure art. I feel really upset to feel so disconnected from people in not being able to see the greatness that others see here. It's honestly a really bad feeling. I guess I blind bought this film ages ago for nothing, because I just don't see myself revisiting it or trying to sit through its runtime without feeling anything again. This reminds me a lot of how I kept reading reviews of how Aftersun made so many people emotional, but everything felt totally distant, alien, slow and flat to me. I promise I'm an extremely empathetic viewer most of the time. It's not at all unusual for me to tear up during movies that move me. I've watched GOTG 3 about 8 times since the recent Disney+ release, and that one truly got me worked up at three different points of the film every viewing, because I immensely cared about everyone and everything happening so much.

Again, I mean no disrespect to the millions of people who love this movie. This entry is more of a frustration vent that I don't see what others are seeing than some kind of attempt to do an objective "takedown" of the film. I simply didn't vibe with anyone or anything, but I'm not sitting here trying to tell anyone else how to feel about a piece of media. I expect the same courtesy in return from anyone who wants to comment here, and I warn you, my fuse will be a bit short when I'm already bummed.

2014 Ranked