You know it’s a bad sign when everyone in the audience fidgets through a film and bolts for the exit as soon as the credits start to roll. Leaving the theatre, I even heard someone say, “that was just too far out.”

For almost three hours we watched a cast of Oscar winners try to rescue a film that starts with earth turning to a dust bowl and the fate of humanity resting on the shoulders of Matthew McConaughey an astronaut turned farmer, who must investigate outer planets in the galaxy on a secret mission that has a defunct NASA holed up in Norad headquarters. In this time, missions to space have been stricken from textbooks. From the start it’s a stretch.

Enter Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Matt Damon, John Lithgow, and Michael Caine. I kept thinking about the actors and how in the end, no matter who is in your movie, it all comes down to the script. I wanted great things from writer, director Christopher Nolan who brought back the Dark Knight series with Christian Bale but they couldn’t pull this one off.

So what went so wrong? A convoluted plot that lands the actors in the realm of the fifth dimension racing against time and relativity that keeps Mr. McConaughey looking 40  at 123 years old. This is not Benjamin Button. I wish. Then thundering organ music to signal dramatic moments.

I couldn’t help thinking about space movies I have loved. Most recently, Gravity, and how Sandra Bullock gave perhaps the most memorable role of her career. Mostly I felt bad for the actors because I wouldn’t even recommend this film as a rental or Netflix download. It’s just not worth your time or your money.