If this movie were set in, say, the Wonderful Land of Oz, it might stand up as a lightweight fantasy. Very lightweight. But dressed in the trappings of science fiction, it's simply appalling.

True, it does look purdy, with all that computer graphic stuff slathered all over the screen. And it does tell a story, of sorts: the dad who wants to redeem himself in the eyes of his daughter. It actually could have worked. But the story meanders for hours and hours, and any semblance of logic is completely abandoned after the trip through the wormhole, making it very hard to care what happens.

Just one example: the takeoff from Earth requires a multi-stage rocket on the scale of the Saturn V. The takeoff from a planet "near the black hole," (!) with "gravity greater than Earth's" is handled effortlessly by a tiny shuttlecraft. The movie is filled with similar lapses in basic logic. The final events near (and inside!) the black hole are so completely lacking in scientific plausibility that they'd seem embarrassing in a ten-cent comic book. In a multi-hundred-million-dollar epic, the complete disregard of all known science borders on criminal.

On the positive side, Interstellar is a better film than Gravity. The science is equally implausible, but the story doesn't depend on the science quite so obviously. Nonetheless, the popularity of feeble junk like this makes a sad comment on the state of knowledge and tastes in our 21st-century society.