PLEASE DON’T GO DADDY: Coop (Matthew McConaughery, right) sits with his 10-year-old daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy) on his lap while he explains that NASA is offering him the position of captain of the spaceship Endurance. Murph is distraught because her mother is dead and now her father is going off into space on a perilous quest, and there is a good chance he may not return. (Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon-© 2014 Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. and Paramount Pictures Corporation. All Rights Reserved)

Christopher Nolan is one of my favorite directors, and four of his pictures have made my annual Top Ten List; including Memento, The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, and Insomnia. However, I had a hard time understanding exactly what was going on in Inception, an inscrutable mindbender that I found to be a little too hip.

In this critic’s opinion, the same could be said about Interstellar, an over-plotted science fiction film with too many layers. Clocking in at 169 minutes, the movie had me recalling 7-time Oscar-winner Gravity, a similar outer space adventure which resolved its loose ends in about half the time.

At the point of departure, we find the Earth devastated by drought and dust storms that have brought it to the brink of famine. With the planet almost uninhabitable, NASA decides that the last hope for humanity rests in finding another planet that is capable of supporting life.

The agency mounts a mission, code named Lazarus, to search for a world with a compatible environment for humans. The person chosen to lead the mission, Coop (Matthew McConaughey), is understandably reluctant about being brought out of retirement to captain the spaceship Endurance.

However, the veteran test pilot is eager to accept the offer, since he never got a chance to go into space during his career. On the other hand, as a widower and single parent, he hates the thought of leaving, and possibly orphaning, his two children.

In particular, his daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy) is only 10 and is unhappy when he informs her of his plans. Her reaction is reasonable, given the blight on Earth and the possibility of never seeing her father again.

But, with his father-in-law’s (John Lithgow) blessing, Coop opts to accept the assignment, which affords him an opportunity to realize his lifelong dream. Joining him is a crew comprised of scientist Brand (Anne Hathaway), astrophysicist Romilly (David Gyasi), and intergalactic cartographer Doyle (Wes Bentley), all of who are assisted by two sophisticated robots (Bill Irwin and Josh Stewart).

After blastoff, they head for a distant wormhole near Saturn that is supposed to provide a portal into a parallel universe. At this juncture, the picture relies upon pseudoscientific dialogue to explain such phenomena as black holes, unusual gravitational pulls, and time slowing down. Eventually, Endurance connects with a NASA space station that is stranded on a remote planet where they rouse the sole survivor from a cryogenic sleep and discover that it’s Matt Damon.

This critic is not too proud to admit that I couldn’t follow the convoluted storyline from about this point forward. However, the panoramic visuals are breathtaking.

Good (**). Rated PG-13 for intense action and brief profanity. Running time: 169 minutes. Distributor: Paramount Pictures.