I've always tried to pinpoint why I don't like his movies, like there's something missing. And then it hit me, his movies are emotionally unengaging. I don't care about what happens to the characters in his movies. If someone dies or is hurt there's no emotional impact. His movies feel sterile. The only movie of his where I remotely felt something was The Prestige.
shareI think maybe his movies lack a bit of style and personality. His actions scenes are fairly generic and there are very few larger than life characters in his films.
He is a good director though and I like his films. His critics always say he's overrated and I think that's true in one sense regarding his films being rated a little too highly, but I can fully understand why he's the big name he is today.
Bingo on the lack of style and personality. And yes, his action scenes suck. He also has no sense of pacing, his movies always drag on.
shareTechnically he is very proficient. I have found several of his films enjoyable although nothing I would go back to.
But as mentioned above, his movies lack personality. He also has an apparent need to spell things out for his audience (for example making it clear that we ARE TOLD BLATANTLY that Dunkirk is not told sequentially, rather than trusting us to work it out for ourselves.
Interstellar is one of the worst movies of recent years but the rest of his catalogue is fine. I am baffled by the extent of his following, though.
Yes and no.
Nolan movies are probably the less emotional ones in Hollywood right now. However, that's not necessarily a flaw. Modern Hollywood is often over-emotional. Characters are mostly extreme and black-and-white, either extremely good or extremely bad. There's barely room for grey areas and complex characters. Modern Hollywood feels often like emotional porn.
Nolan doesn't pay much attention to the emotions, that's true. However, he chooses stories that don't need much emotions, the characters are often a professional team working in a common goal, and they work as pros and leave emotions aside (which is what happens in real life, I'm sick of modern movies portraying alleged teams of professionals as non-stop rollercoaster teenager drama).