Color me disappointed.

Considering the rave reviews and being a devotee of science fiction -- especially space-based sci-fi -- I was looking forward to watching this film. Plus, Nolan's Inception is a masterpiece. Why was the prior movie so much better? Partly because of the acting, partly because of the dialogue, but mostly because of the premise: the malleable fantastic realm of the inner mind, versus the hard, science-dependent realm of negotiating, navigating and surviving space travel.

Unfortunately, Interstellar didn't live up to the hype in any respect. The storyline was so far-fetched, it didn't even qualify as science fiction. It was more pure fantasy with a patina of pseudo-science stuff to give it a sci-fi façade -- but there was zero science, or even simple logic, underlying the premise. Some might argue that a film about mankind being guided by entities beyond our grasp has license to go pure fantasy -- but the rudimentary elements of the central characters' travels and travails still need to remain sensible, and they weren't.

And the plot holes! Big enough to drive their dilapidated pickup truck through -- which miraculously repaired itself whenever that was most convenient. The glaring skip-overs and convenient fixes to even the most fundamental logical incongruities during their interstellar journey were mind-numbing. I'm used to suspending disbelief during science fiction flicks and going along for the ride, but this film demanded total ignorance and blind acceptance of it's own illogical nonsense.

But the worst part of the film was the dialogue. Not only did it try too hard to sound "natural" -- and in doing so came across as totally stilted -- but it was so paint-by-the-numbers pat that I was finishing their scripted sentences before the actors were halfway through reciting them. When Nolan decided that there needed to be tension between the characters, instead of crafting a scenario in which the tension gradually builds, he simply added a couple of lines of unwarranted, gratuitously abrasive dialogue and voila! We have tension!

I gave it four stars because at times I was able to shut down my brain and enjoy the special effects, but even those were stolen from dozens of earlier space movies and even video games.

That this badly-flawed movie has received such high marks does not bode well for the future of the craft. Perhaps the industry is a victim of mind-numbing computer games, where it's all about the destination, not the journey.