I don't really mind seeing a movie that's just outright bad, but a movie like this, that is so promising and contains so many excellent elements but doesn't pull through in the end, is worse! So much about this movie is great - the "modern day" story is excellently written and acted (mostly acted; Hugh Jackman is phenomenal) and really got me emotionally involved, and the Mayan mythological elements seemed surprisingly uncontrived. But every segment involving "Tom" positively ruins the effect. These sequences are so New Age-y and ridiculous that it totally detaches you from any kind of emotional involvement in the film, and it's really painful how ridiculous they are. It doesn't help that Mogwai lay on the cheeze as thick as it comes with their contributions to the score. To top it all off, the movie absolutely REFUSES to end, so that even though it has a short running time (hardly over an hour and a half), it feels like Aronofsky was actually the one who found the formula for eternal life (and gave it to his movie!). There's a lot of waste here - wasted acting, wasted writing, wasted visuals - because in the end, you will laugh at how ridiculous some of the scenes are, and at how godawful and inconclusive the "ending" is. I really hope that the graphic novel is better, but until then, just go watch Solaris (either version) - it deals with all of these themes much more gracefully and with great subtlety.
Review of The Fountain
