★★★★

Walking out of the theater after seeing Inception, I made a little promise to myself: I would never watch another Chris Nolan sci fi smart guy movie for frat bros again. But for some reason, one I can’t really explain, over the past few weeks I’ve felt a little tickle in the back of my head telling me to watch this movie. I don’t know where the tickle came from, or why I couldn’t quiet it down as I thought more and more about it. So I decided today that I would give in to this strange feeling, sit down and watch this, and you know what? I thought it was pretty good. Everything exudes a nice “cool” aura, the characters move with purpose, every shot and scene is very well choreographed, and the pacing is great.

The two parts that are still real letdowns are 1) anytime anyone is talking, and 2) the actual substance of the plot. The “twists” are presented with a really interesting visual language, but their actual substance feels mostly predictable. The dialogue is truly atrocious, anytime Robert Pattinson started talking about time travel movie 101 stuff I truly wanted him to shut up and look pretty. The way every character whipsawed from hero to villain and back felt very pointless, and the setup for a sequel at the very end had my eyes roll into the back of my head.

These faults may seem like they should push the movie into “bad” territory, but I managed to keep my brain in the right zone to enjoy this thoroughly. I’m not an advocate for telling an audience to “turn your brain off,” but something about how the movie locks you in (in particular the sound design, which is a straight up masterwork) kept me from thinking too hard about anything. I wouldn’t really “recommend” this movie, but I enjoyed it personally quite a bit.

I’ll still never watch Interstellar. That’s the Mike Promise.