Movie was good...but far from Nolan's best work...
The only characters I found to be more than plot devices were Cooper, Donald, TARS and CASE...
TARS and CASE borderline stole this entire movie to me...
Also, and I guess this is just a pet peeve of mine, but I absolutely HATE when a movie is based around scientist...and the movie goes out of it's way to make them seem smart with all the technical and philosophical talk, and then they habitually show poor judgement that undermines their intelligence as scientist...
The entire movie was like this...cooper is the only person who showed even a little bit of common sense...
When they went to the first planet...why on Earth did Amelia and Doyle even get out of the craft...they should have let one of the robots get the beacon in the first place...and in the end what ended up happening?
They had a serious argument about not wanting to waste 7 years and they end up wasting over 20? And Romily actually stays. And then when the logical thing to do is have him say he gleamed some information from the black hole, he says he gleamed very little info from it? So why stay? Then to top it all off, they go through this big explanation of how you cannot get any info about time from the black hole without being in it, which begs the question WHAT WAS ROMILY DOING UP THERE? The same guy who says he is going to stay and study time in the black hole is the same guy who turns around and says you cannot study time unless you are in the black hole?
The entire part with Matt Damon seemed as if Nolan owed Damon a favor and cashed it in by casting him in this movie. His entire arc made no sense. The crew comes in and scrape off pieces of "frozen cloud" and then Matt Damon convinces them of the world being habitable, while ever square inch of it is fukking frozen? Why are they even asking him? Why not fly the ship around the planet to take a look for themselves? The whole explosion was so telegraphed as to not even be funny. Only good thing about this entire detraction from the movie was it did have one of the best responses to a statement I seen on film in quite some time...
Cooper: Dr Mann there's a 50/50 chance your going to kill yourself.
Dr. Mann: Those are the best odds I've had in years
And the whole airlock thing...I don't understand how Damon's character didn't know that...
Why you send only 1 person to each place is beyond dumb to begin with...
The whole way it ended...how Murphy discovered everything...no real plan of action just staring at old books and having an epiphany...
Somehow Murphy was smart enough to figure that out in about 20 minutes but not smart enough to see through Dr. Brand fake equation...
Movie was good but for a director who has a track record as stellar as Nolan...this is easily his weakest film...
Hopefully he switches it up because he has gotten as heavy handed with philosophical symbolism as Josh Whedon is with pop culture references...
I understand that this is your personal pet peeve, but unless you mean a scientific fallacy, being a scientist doesn't negate that person in always making sound judgment calls, ESPECIALLY when it's over things that haven't yet been proven or is unknown or originally based on theory. They are still human, and I believe that's a lot of the point. Nolan made it a big point that Cooper is agnostic that only believes everything has a logical scientific explanation until he approaches the unnatural and confront individuals who goes off faith rather than logic. The whole debate with Amelia as to which planet to go and he's basing going to Mann's planet due to logical reasons whereas she's basing it on a gut feeling and love, Cooper made that judgment call which was the logical one, yet turned out being the bad one.
The more I think about it, a lot of those bad judgment calls were by intent to show the errs of being human. The film is about humanity in general. The bad judgment of Amelia that cost the life of one of their crew members was her defiant obsession to complete the mission. Even Cooper stated they were way in their heads and were not prepared or properly trained for any of this. These lapse of judgments were called out, on both sides in fact. Especially when they made the compromise NOT to waste time on the planet, but due to their lack of judgment it cost them 23 Earth years and they were only there for just a few hours.
Also, Rommily DID get information on the black hole, which lead to the proper judgment call by Cooper to send TARS (and sacrificing himself to lighten the load) to enter the black hole to transmit information within there and send it back to Earth which eventually be the reason why humanity was saved.
Also, you definitely overlooked the point of Dr. Mann, even though his name blatantly clue you in as to him representing the selfishness of mankind. Dr. Mann and Tom parallel each other (hence, those scenes intertwining). They both represented "plan B" who believes all of humanity is lost and there's nothing else left to do. The only thing Dr. Mann had going for him was to complete the mission of repopulating mankind. Also, due to being in complete isolation for years, he had turned insane. But he is the polar opposite to Rommily (which argued to why he was killed) who represented "plan A" and still had hope and faith for humanity's survival. Both were placed in almost identical scenarios where they were in isolation for decades and handled it oppositely. Rommily could of easily told TARS "fukk this" and headed back through that wormhole back to Earth and say it was a wrap, but he held on. Whereas, Dr. Mann was so desperate and lonely he placed himself into eternal sleep in put a beacon on him in HOPES that someone could rescue him.
In regards of Murphy, it technically her ENTIRE LIFETIME to figure everything out. Cooper started sending messages when she was a child. But again, this is where the argument of scientific logic vs. faith/love. The only reason why Murphy figured out Cooper was communicating with her was due to her faith and spiritual connection with her father, the same way Amelia had that spiritual connection with her boyfriend which turned out to be the correct habitual planet to repopulate. After that, it still took another 60 years solve the hidden equation. Also, remember, she DID figure out Professor Brand's equation which was why she initially asked why he was trying to solve something with "both hands behind his back". She knew he was hiding something, but never expected him to outright lie to her. You have to think about this, Dr. Brand was her ONLY father figure she had, and literally raised her after Cooper left and so of course she would have trust in his reasons, and never expect for HIM of all people to lie and deceive everyone. But due to her being part of the "plan A" group, her faith still believes that there's a way.
There's a GANG of philosophical aspects to this films, I have barely broke the surface doing in depth on everything, it maybe heavy handed to you, but I enjoy films that have deep philosophical meanings, especially when contrasting it with science.