The plot, while confusing is actually straight forward, 2nd watch that is. Therein lies the problem.. I shouldn't, or anyone really, have to watch a 2 hour and 30 minute film twice to get the full picture. Nolan is very talented and very intelligent, especially his knowledge of the sciences. But, this film shows his ambition has lead him down an unnecessary road, confusion filmmaking.
He's better suited to turning the implausible into reality and immersing the viewer fully in his vision. His attempt at redefining time travel movies has failed to actually interest anyone that was remotely interested in it. The biggest mistake is the lack of explanation of how this theory is possible (not just its origins). This leads to the film just honestly feeling silly to watch and not very interesting.
As other viewers and critics alike have mentioned the sound, I feel I should address this. The score isn't awful, but it's not great and it's extraordinarily loud and dramatic when it shouldn't be. Maybe we've been spoiled by other Nolan films that have been graced by Hans Zimmer, this one is too loud. This destroys dialogue at times and I seriously struggled, especially with Robert Pattinson, to hear what the actors were mumbling. Taking into consideration that Nolan films rely heavily on his written word, they may want to address this. However, considering I watched this via Blu-Ray.. they clearly didn't.
The acting was good, except for Washington. I feel his performance started strong and just levelled out into a down right average B-rate affair. As I said, acting was good.. just don't expect Oscar worthy performances from the rest. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, despite a short part, was the standout for me.
It's visually stunning, but as I've said.. Nolan was far too ambitious and it really hasn't paid off for him. I don't wish to spend 5 hours watching a film just to understand it. But, once you do understand it you realise just how simple the premise is, but it's been overly complicated by an otherwise direct, intelligent & talented director, Christopher Nolan.
He really needs to stop relying on the dramatic scores.. it didn't save him this time and it won't save him anymore. He is a genius and a genius filmmaker, but I don't want a genius script that confuses the life out of me, I want a great script that engages me.
It's in no way a bad film, but, it isn't great either.