'Memento' and 'Inception' had some problems, but their ideas stretched the imagination. 'Interstellar' only delivers the bombastic silliness one would expect if a puffed-up Batman director thought he could eclipse Kubrick's '2001' with a puerile adventure story. Christopher Nolan's new film begins badly and steadily declines as its long-winded prologue introduces the stereotypical elements of a Steven Spielberg/Norman Rockwell Sci-Fi co-production - a widowed ex-astronaut farmer, his chiseled jaw, a feisty daughter, a crusty grandpa, a dying Earth, dust storms, paranormal activity, baseball, cornfields - and lots of corn.

After about an hour - which seems like two - a valiant crew lifts off in search of a planet to save humanity. Once they've journeyed through an intergalactic wormhole, the implausibility dimension expands to cosmic levels. Scientific hocus-pocus is stirred into the sentimental sludge as gigantic tsunamis, deranged astronauts, spaceship chases, time travel tomfoolery and black hole baloney eventually lead to a schmaltzy Hallmark-style climax. The visual effects are above average, but far short of awesome. When all is said and done, the film's self-importance and mawkishness leave one rooting for humanity's extinction.