Through the years director Terry Gilliam has managed to make a number of widely loved movies. Films like Brazil, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Twelve Monkeys and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas are just a few examples. He has always been good in creating strange, but at the same time very believable, worlds in which you could lose yourself. With Zero Theorem he tries to do this again, but this time I felt he failed. After watching it I had the feeling I wasn’t watching a recent movie, but something made in the nineties with disappointing CGI and a world which doesn’t feel like it came into becoming a reality in an organic way. The story itself also did not manage to make my heart beat any faster.
It is all about Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz), who works very hard (breaking codes by solving puzzles which looks like game), but who doesn’t seem to be completely normal. Instead of saying “I’ve done that”, he will say “We’ve done that” and he seems to lack any social skills. When he is selected to solve the ‘zero theorem’ problem (everything in the universe equals zero) he only becomes weirder. His only contact with the outside world is with a prostitute, the son of the company and a virtual psychiatrist (Tilda Swinton) who again plays a weird character similar to the one in Snowpiercer). The question is whether Qohen will be able to solve the problem and change his life. Paranoia and finding himself are the central themes.
With an unconvincing world and a main character for which I didn’t feel any sympathy I simply didn’t care much about what happened. The character also doesn’t seem to experience much and the obstacles on his paths never feel like threats. By the time the credits rolled by the movie had already lost me and I started to wonder Gilliam had tried in trick of creating a strange world just one time too many.
Gilliam is a weird director, that’s for sure. It’s a bummer that this isn’t that great though, especially with that cast.
Yeah, I had high hopes of it but was very disappointed.
Aiyah, it’s that bad eh? Terry Gilliam movies are an acquired taste. I like ‘Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus’ but I seriously don’t know if I’m gonna like his movie going into it, I guess I’m still curious to rent this for Christoph.
Well, it wasn’t my thing and in general I like his movies. I also liked Imaginarium.
Nice review. Saw this a while ago on VOD and was very impressed. I felt that Waltz’s character was pretty in-depth and found him to be pretty relatable. Plus it’s always good to see Gilliam release a film, sadly few are willing to finance his projects today.
Yeah, you were? I simply could not get into it because it all was so weird.
Wow, that bad? I’m a bit surprised.
When I saw this was about to be released I was immediately excited, partly because of Terry Gilliam, who has made a couple of films that I love, and also because Christoph Waltz was in the lead playing coo coo. Then I saw the trailer and I was taken aback by the world Gilliam created (at first glance of course).
I will, however, take your thoughts and consider them as I prepare to watch it in the coming days. Thanks for sharing!
Well Niels, maybe you’ll love it. I like Gilliams movies in general, just not this one.
Great review. Good to see people finally seeing this – I saw it months ago but it clearly wasn’t released everywhere as people were like “what’s this???” when I reviewed it. 🙂 I’m not the biggest Gilliam fan in the first place but for some reason KIND OF enjoyed this one. I can see why some wouldn’t, though. It does have plenty of faults. Nice review. 🙂 (T9M from CPD again) 😉
Nice to hear that you got something more out of it!