I just got back from this, and I cried all the way home, too. Eight dollars is a terrible thing to waste, and I didn't even get popcorn. I made popcorn at home to console myself.
I really wanted to like this movie at least a little, and I couldn't manage it. I tried, I really did. Please read the following as totally unschooled opinion, because it's well known that my taste in film is pretty shitty.
Spoilers begin.
The conquistador storyline made me want to divest the universe of everyone involved in making the film and many people watching it in the theatre with me out of sheer irritation. It was partly that it consisted of not a single remotely interesting character, other than the vaguely moorish looking guy who got killed for disagreeing with the main character. If there'd been more suggestion that the queen was sending him to the Americas to get him out of her fucking hair, as I interpreted it, I think I would have hated it slightly less. Does the world really need another "revolutionary" movie that hinges on white characters slaughtering the bloodthirsty savages, then being worshipped by them when they turn into glowing white Buddha figures, then slaughtering them more? I didn't think so.
The "future" timeline: This wasn't really a timeline, storyline, or plot arc, because nothing happened. The internal conflict was insufficiently developed to sustain forward motion. I noticed that the main character was torn between attending to the tree and the memories, and I thought that was interesting, but nothing was really done with it. I assume that the character was living off the tree as a parasite and that was part of the problem, and that could have been interesting, but again, nothing was done with it. What we're left with is not actually all that interesting to me— Did this guy find a cure for aging and live five hundred years only to still be obsessed with his dead wife? If so, why should we care about his tortured existence, other than to recommend therapy? Preferably of some form other than launching oneself into a nebula in a space bubble rather like an eco-sphere paperweight with a neurotic supposedly near-enlightened being playing the role of the shrimp. Of course, to show (comparative) spiritual advancement we must portray a white person doing tai chi (badly) and levitating in lotus position, because that's not overdone.
The "present-day" plotline: Most worthwhile, but still pretty flawed. Without any character development, we don't know much about Izzy except that she's considered saintly by a lot of people. If she's so awesome, we're shown no reason why she would continue to try to sustain a relationship with the main character, who is depicted as a driven, obsessive, self-centered jerk. The science is gibberish. Other characters also aren't developed— the woman overseeing the main character's experiment is pretty complex, I bet, but we don't get much of her.
The themes: The movie doesn't say anything new, and it doesn't say anything new in a way that is very pretentious about how new what it is saying is supposed to be. Overcome death by making peace with it. AMAZING. American Beauty said that better in 1999. If anything, the movie's novel gimmicks only detract from the message, if that is the message.
Effects: Pretty, but not flawless. The plant bursting out of the ground looked so fake I burst out laughing. It didn't seem like it was intended to look fake; it looked like they were trying for otherworldly.
Good points: There was a lot of good editing. And it is in many places very pretty. And the conquistador dies. Horribly.
End spoilers.
In the words of the unsuspecting friend I dragged to see this: "This movie was brought to you by the color white, and all that implies." |
