The Zero Theorem

source: The Zero Theorem

There is no deeper meaning of life in the 'god sense', or in the 'metaphysical sense'. There is no personal god. All of it will end in the "big crunch" and meaningwise - all of it adds up to nothing. I don't think in 2015 these things come as surprises to any thinking person who knows a little bit of physics and contemporary cosmology. So what can you do as a single individual on Planet Earth? Go out and try to find something that gives some meaning to your individual life, and make some use of it. And - almost needless to say - don't wait for imaginary higher powers to do the job for you. Terry Gilliam (together with the rest of the Monty Python crew) fully covered this subject in the "Meaning of Life" and a variety of other works. Why then, go back to this boring non-question in 2015, and make a 2 hour borefest from it? Are there no better topics for Terry Gilliam to tackle?? As a huge fan of the director, I can't give any stars for this nonsense. The striking Gilliamesque visuals, the dystopian future, the great actors... all for nothing in this case. The movie looks like "Brazil" and "12 Monkeys", but does not give the viewer any catharsis, does not convey any novel message, does not trigger any deeper philosophical conversations and does not illuminate anything. Very, very disappointing, especially given the directing and acting talent involved.

This is likely the worst film I have seen in the last five years. And that's a big call. It just doesn't make sense. I'm a smart girl, but I couldn't make hide nor hair of this film. Random things happen for no reason. Matt Damon appears for about 2 minutes and there are far too many scenes featuring the fat naked main character for my liking. Plus the only two women in the film are a prostitute and a robot psychologist. Which is fine because the other characters are pretty unlikeable too. I found no one in the film particularly interesting, and I suspect Terry Gilliam was carried away being clever. If you'd like to see Matt Damon in a "proper" esoteric film, get out Dogma. At least it's entertaining.

This was terrible. The early Terry Gilliam stuff was great - suddenly he began contemplating his navel and never got back out! I love bizarre movies - but this one just never went anywhere. Spell that B-O-R-I-N-G! Thanks Terry - get back with the Python crew or someone for some supportive input - this was a gasser. I give the two for some interesting scenery and costumes - nothing else. Oh... it seems I don't have enough lines of comment. Pretty bad when they judge a review by the number of lines! ..duh... one more line... Ahhhh, think I've made it. Why the torture of a line count?? Ad absurdum!! Bye all!! Ooops!! O.K., Here's another line just t fill the void... Sorry foe this, but a succinct review should suffice! Yes?? No??

As a fan of Terry Gilliam's prior work, I was confident that this film would live up to 'Brazil' and 'Twelve Monkeys'. Couldn't be more wrong. The screenplay makes Forrest Gump look sophisticated. The characters are uniformly caricatural: the tortured genius looking for truth, the hooker with a heart of gold, the tech-savvy adolescent wise beyond his years, the shrewd business mogul who manipulates all, and so on, and so on. Art direction, musical score, set design, range between annoying and just plain over the top. Special effects and computer graphics straight out of the late great Cannon Studios tradition of C for cheeeeesy. As regards the cast, Matt Damon is wooden and Tilda Swinton (who I revere), histrionic. Only Christoph Waltz manages to keep his character afloat, through stilted dialogue and terrible costumes, for which he deserves a better part. The worst thing, by far, is the mannered camera work, which makes every one of the seemingly endless 107 minutes excruciating to watch. This film is an embarrassment to all involved. If you like Terry Gilliam, do yourself a favour and skip this one.

OK. Of course it's a Gilliam movie but i saw this mainly because of Waltz. I've always loved every single role this man played, even the smaller ones.. until now. Still, his performance almost shined given the material he was given to work with, but the overall impression is he could do better if the script inspired and motivated him. The movie? Colors.. everywhere! Distracting colors. Everywhere! There had to be a reason for this which i failed to discover. Maybe it's just me but as i watched this i couldn't help myself thinking that something was terribly wrong. I guess the visual combination of the cinematography of Dark City and Austin Powers is not my cup of tea. But artistic expression in a movie is a matter of taste which should be respectfully received IF there are other things to hold on to.. like an interesting plot.. or in this case.. any plot! No, no plot in this one folks, just a flat tiresome script with lots of meaningless repetitive dialogs, plenty of silly costumes, a few caricature-like characters, some easy acting, and.. colors! Was it that bad? Well, kinda.. yeap! Mainly because it had the potential to be a great movie given the people involved and the concept it was based. Do i recommend it? Hmm.. let me put it this way, flip a coin twice, if it's heads both times go ahead and watch it!

This is Gilliam at his most aggressively, satirically metaphysical. clearly enjoying pushing buttons in our brain.. and if you resist, you will suffer. Clearly an answer to the big no-brainer sci-fi films of the past few years. I've seen it claimed above that it relies on its visuals over any substance, well that's simply not true... the depth is there in spades.. you just have to dig for it yourself.. Notions of religion, Love, Friendship, Perceptions and Belief are toyed with in many guises. The interactions between Qohen, a socially awkward lost soul with the other (equally lost, but faking it really well until the end)characters is poetic and believable. - And the fact that nothing seems to resolve in the end is clearly a massive point of the narrative;and,personally,I would have been quite disappointed in any other ending. Its not Brazil.. but nothing is... Gilliam always provokes thought and surely that's a good thing.

This film is entertaining, but even though I like Terry Gilliam, there is just something missing. Possibly it's a point. The film has NO point. Maybe that's the point? But for the whole length of it we are convinced there will be some kind of redemption, some kind of explanation, some kind of reason to watch the damn film in the first place. Most of it just seems to be ticking boxes for Terry. Awkward protagonist, dystopian future, love interest, people in silly costumes, lots of colours, steam-tech gear, and strange delivery-people. Yeah and... yeah, where's the point, again? One bit of visual eye-candy I liked was the data-representation system, but I can't describe it here, for the sake of those who haven't seen the film yet. Look, it's not a crap film, it's just not blindingly evocative and moving. It's certainly no Brazil even though it has things in common (and its a LOT more cheerful). It's no Fisher King. It's not even a Doctor Parnassus. One purely for the fans I think.

Terry Gilliam is back with one of his better films in recent years. It's also one of his more philosophical films, as it grapples with many deep questions, including the meaning of life itself. Gilliam calls "The Zero Theorem" the third instalment in his dystopian satire trilogy, which began with "Brazil" in 1985 and was followed by "Twelve Monkeys" in 1995. "The Zero Theorem" follows the story of Qohen Leth, a number-crunching programmer at a large corporation called Mancom. While struggling with life in general, Qohen is given the job of solving the zero theorem, a mysterious mathematical equation that continually eludes his grasp. The task is complicated by some new personal relationships when he meets Bainsley, a tempting Internet *, and Bob, the 15 year old, genius son of the CEO of Mancom. Have they entered his life to help Qohen, or are they merely unnecessary distractions from his work? Qohen is often unsure about the answer to that question. The world of the film resembles that of Gilliam's previous two dystopian satires, but this is its own film and it deals with some new themes and conflicts. I'd say the themes and questions are even deeper here, because Gilliam is struggling with the meaning of life itself. Anyway, it all works and leads to an intriguing and visually engaging story. "The Zero Theorem" gets a big thumbs up from me. You should definitely check out this one, especially if you're a fan of Gilliam's earlier work.

i thought they didn't make movies like that anymore - visually wild and beautiful, very confusing and crazy, deeply humane, with love passing by and forever leaving its mark on everyone. i just now thought that i feel in a similar way when reading some of brother strugatsky's books: the strangling system machine, the human pawns in somebody's heartless game, the desperate search for meaning of life, the dangerously feeble spark of love. i was attracted by the visuals of this movie, but almost gave up after about 40th minute - it was all too confusing, a crazy circus of unexplainable characters and chatter. at some point though, i started to see more clearly what is happening and all started making much more sense, to the extent that i got hooked. i don't remember much of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, but i have the feeling the two movies were very close in concept and realization. not much of a review, i know, but i'm still under the impressions of this movie and really, if any of the above makes any sense to you - go watch it, you will enjoy it :) 10 out of 10