Interstellar (2014)

2/5

Christopher Nolan's overindulgent Interstellar is a pretentious pile of crap. It will draw instant comparisons to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, mostly because it's overlong and cerebral, but it doesn't achieve nearly the same success as its predecessor in the field of art or entertainment. The plot is the least important part of the movie, but Nolan spends an exorbitant amount of time and effort explaining all its inane details. Whereas 2001 contained groundbreaking universal ideas, Interstellar contains unexciting characters performing specific tasks in a fictitious world. Nolan adds in an emotional tug that was absent in 2001, but it almost serves as the antithesis of the existential crisis at the core of both sci-fi films. I never felt myself pulled in by the relationship between Matthew McConaughey and his daughter (it felt inauthentic) or by Anne Hathaway's silly monologue about believing in love over science.

But my biggest problem with the film is that everything is wrapped up too neatly. I normally enjoy circular stories--where the end brings everything back to the beginning--but here it feels so written, so planned, so deceptive. The movie is too tidy for the big ideas it presents. Nolan tries to lecture and explain instead of let the film exist as a jumping off point. He wants to control the discussion instead of letting the discussion occur organically. Perhaps 2001's greatest strength is that it was so unexplained, so open to interpretation. Interstellar doesn't have that, and it leaves the movie flat. Despite the gorgeous visuals, spot-on acting, and surprise cameo, the movie just doesn't do it for me.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

2/5

Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises is a middling experience from conception to execution. The plot is absolutely ridiculous, starring a bad guy with a more preposterously complicated and ludicrously conceived plan than a James Bond villain. The web is littered with countless reviews describing the innumerable plot holes in this film; my favorite is the "prison" that has no guards whatsoever and has an open hatch where everyone is allowed to attempt escape. (Luckily, this prison also apparently neighbors Gotham City!) In the bad science department, I think it actually one-ups Batman Begins, with its notion that someone's broken vertebrae can be realigned as if it were a shoulder dislocation (you know, because there's no spinal cord running through the "out of place" vertebrae that might be irreparably damaged). Also, our protagonist is absent for about half the film, during which time it turns into a WWII Nazi Germany movie.

And that's just the storyline. The technical aspects of the movie fared no better. Similar to the first one, the action is unintelligible thanks to close-ups, quick cuts, and poor lighting. The intro sequence is, quite honestly, unnecessary garbage. The acting is its own form of mess, except for Caine--who truly blew me away with a performance that should have been reserved for a far better film--and Hathaway. Despite the remarkable failure of the individual cinematic elements, The Dark Knight Rises kept me glued to my seat. Nolan is able to achieve an indescribable anticipation and a palpable excitement, an aura of cool. Unfortunately, it lacks any substantive backing to that nebulous quality, which would surely disappear if I were to see the movie again. Honestly, I cannot recommend this film. Despite all the hype and popularity, it is destined to become a cult classic, loved by a few and forgotten by everyone else.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1345836/

Inception (2010)

5/5

Christopher Nolan's Inception is a near-perfect film. It follows a thief named Cobb (DiCaprio) and his team of extractors (Gordon-Levitt, Hardy, Rao, Page) as they invade people's dreams and steal their secrets. They are hired to carry out a new kind of job called inception: implant an idea in someone else's head through their dreams. In order to do this and convince the dreamer that it is their own idea, they must go three levels deep--a dream within a dream within a dream. With each level removed from reality, time slows down exponentially, such that entire lives can be lived within mere seconds. Imagine the life you're living now; imagine dying 80 years after being born and then waking up to find yourself still young. And that is the idea from which this entire movie stems, from which it will no doubt be compared to the likes of The Matrix. But what Inception has over The Matrix is that we all dream, and we all know what it's like to wake up from a dream. We can imagine that what we're living in now is just a dream, and maybe--just maybe--we can wake up and get a second chance at life.

The cinematography in this film is crisp and direct. Except for the impressive and awe-inspiring gravity-defying action scenes in the hotel, it's merely adequate. It's not particularly cumbersome nor is it particularly artistic, but it gets the job done. The acting feels much the same. It is written well enough to make the characters distinct and separate, but they never feel like more than just archetypes. Even DiCaprio's character, by far the most complex and mature, feels like a rehashing of the tormented soul he played in Shutter Island. And Marion Cotillard, whose acting I fell in love with in Nine, plays a representation of an idea instead of a real human being. But these are the weakest aspects of the movie.

Inception's strengths are its storytelling, directing, and editing. The story, as I've described above, is what will win this movie its fans and its cult following. The plot, compelling as it is, exists solely to propel the idea that the world we think is real may just be a dream. And as Cobb warns us in the film, an idea is the most dangerous, insidious, persistent threat to our health and wellbeing that we can imagine. The story is combined with precise editing to create an airtight film that never lets you catch your breath or blink your eyes. It is nonstop intellectual and visceral action from beginning to end, with stunning efficiency and economy. And Nolan's directing puts this movie together into an unforgettable whole, with nary a missing piece or unseen error. This is a movie that was not thrown together in a day; it took years of planning and execution and is all the better for it. No, it's not a perfect movie and it may not be for everybody, but it's one of the most riveting, revolutionary movies I've seen come out of Hollywood in a long, long time. I suggest you watch it as soon as possible, before all the water cooler chatter about it ruins the film for you.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/

The Dark Knight (2008)

4/5

Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight is far, far superior to his earlier Batman Begins. With this film, Batman has stepped out of the action comic niche and into the serious drama genre. And yet, I find that it doesn't have much to say in that regard. Despite being bleak and hopeless, it reveals no message. Unlike No Country for Old Men or A Clockwork Orange, the discomfort and unpleasantness you endure while watching are not rectified in the end by a meaningful message. It tells us that the (fictional) citizens of Gotham still have hope, despite living in a city with corrupt cops and innocents-killing villains. I wouldn't have hope, I'd have a moving van reserved. So, granted, it doesn't have a message. But what's the big deal? A lot of movies don't. The big deal is that this movie is so effective at what it sets out to do. It is so well-crafted that you feel the unease and nervousness prickling your skin and upsetting your stomach. And there is no redemption at the end. There is nothing. So why did I watch it?

Technically, the movie is more than adequate. The editing and pacing were superb; not a single frame of what ended up in the final cut was off. The film started off tense with a heist on par with Michael Mann's Heat, and never sagged one bit. When you watch this film, you are enveloped by it. The problem was in its 2.5 hour runtime, which arose not in post-production but in pre-production, while the story was still being formulated. A number of scenes should have been eliminated altogether because they showed nothing new, but merely reiterated what we already knew. Another set of scenes ended abruptly (after the Joker crashes Bruce Wayne's fundraiser, for example) with no resolution or transition, and needed to be reworked. Some technological advances were simply dumb and annoying to the audience (the Bat-Sonar), while others were novel and exciting (the Batcycle/Batpod). The cinematography, while definitely a step up from Batman Begins, was still nothing particularly amazing. (Although after seeing so many awful indie films with bad lighting, I'm impressed to see a movie set almost constantly in darkness where I can tell exactly what's going on at all times.) The music was phenomenal on its own and pitch-perfect in conjunction with the mood and atmosphere of the film. I couldn't get the theme out of my head for at least an hour afterwards.

And onto the acting. Forget everyone else, because all you will care about is Heath Ledger's Joker. He steals the show. Not just in every frame he's in, but in every frame of the movie. You simply cannot stop thinking about him. Even Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent is forgettable in comparison. Now, is it worthy of a posthumous Oscar? It's way too early to tell. But if he gets nominated, I think he should/will win, out of respect for the dead. The rest of the acting was adequate and not the least bit noteworthy. I didn't think that Maggie Gyllenhaal was a good choice to replace Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. She was pretty unattractive in this film (which is shocking, because she can be really attractive in other films like Stranger Than Fiction) and a pretty weak character overall, although she served more of a purpose in this film than in the last one.

Overall, I highly recommend the film. It's difficult for me to say that I enjoyed watching it, due to its unbearably painful and unyielding darkness, but I will admit that I was pleasantly surprised at how much better it was from the first one. It would have been awful to pay money and spend 3 hours in a theater watching a poorly-made version of itself. So, if you liked Batman Begins, you will without a doubt love this one. (It's probably you fanboys who got it to the top spot on IMDb.) If you hated Batman Begins, give this one a chance. But I don't think you're missing much if you skip out on seeing this film, except perhaps the ability to discuss it with all the rest of the people in the world.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/

The Prestige (2006)

4/5

I went into The Prestige not expecting to like it, as I hate all other Christopher Nolan movies (Batman Begins, Insomnia, Memento), but I found this one surprisingly entertaining. As a story involving competition between illusionists, it's very clever, but can at times be too clever. The script is excellent and the acting matches. I thought the camerawork and style did not distract from the quality of the piece, as it did in his other movies. I liked how Nolan was not afraid to tread into other territories than just the main rival magician storyline (I especially liked the part where Fallon comforts the daughter when her parents are arguing). There were a lot of subtle touches and hints of things to come, e.g. the little boy crying about the dead bird, asking why its brother had to die.

The movie is definitely too long; it very barely manages not to feel like an ordeal towards the end. I still don't like Nolan's obsession with nonlinear storytelling because it feels like he's making the movie artificially more complicated so when the dumb audience figures out the timing of each scene, they feel smart and therefore like the movie more. Much of the inherent deception seemed superfluous and could have easily been cut out to make the movie tighter and more engaging. Indeed, a lot of the movie did seem extraneous in general (for example, why was Thomas Edison involved?). Even so, it was a very enjoyable moviegoing experience and is highly recommended.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0482571/