I have watched Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys (1995) and Brazil (1980), both of which I found very visually striking and with a good, engaging story. But this newer effort by the director gave me mixed opinions. A half of me says that the film has something wrong with the pacing. As a viewer, I was impatient for the story to really pickup but never really does so to last second of the film. But another half of me says that perhaps the gradual pacing of the story has something to do with the emphasis on the main character played by Christoph Waltz, who has been living a dull, mechanical life. Maybe the film is suppose to work in way that the viewer gets to experience this feeling. Whatever the original intentions of the film are, currently, the audience seems to be divided as well on whether to place this as good or bad. It holds a 6.1 rating in IMDb (as of March 3, 2018), which is fair, a 50 % on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer, and a score of 50 on Metacritic which indicates mixed reviews.Though the middling reception, considering Terry Gilliam's positive track record as a director, the strength of the visual aspect, the timelessness of the questions it asks, and generally the sense of ambiguity, The Zero Theorem is the looks like the kind of movie that can garner more appreciation through the years. But like the main character, Qohen, it has to prove the seemingly unprovable as of now and be able to connect and grow with its audience. A rewatch of the movie can get this started.

Every now and then I see a flick which really does appear to be one in which the scenarist/writer successfully got a message radioed in by a very pure channeling of the subconscious mind, then never got around to asking the subconscious what it was on about. In this case, the subconscious might have told the writer, "Oh, I need to get an important message to..." me; the guy writing the IMDb comment you're reading.Now, hang in with me here. I say "every now and then" for a reason. If flicks did this more often, I'd look into getting on meds. The point here is that there are just a few too many data points that touch on aspects of my life which... seem... (tho I could be wrong on this) *very* personal.Qohen is very much me. I suppose there may be more folks like me than I realize, and Gilliam & Co. thought to give my forgotten caste a little love, this go-'round.There are, of course, more general, social and technological commentaries which are are like a fish tank water in which swim many interesting species. But Qohen is an odd fish indeed, and very much reflects what I'm going though in my life.I think this flick languishes in the 6.x IMDb score doldrums because... well, for the same reason that a film pitched to my little demographic would bewilder most folks; just as I tend to bewilder most folks.It's a flick that yearns to reach out to all, even though it's not a universal story; how many people are thinking like Qohen?; that he can use the tools provided by an evolving hi-tech/hi-stimulation milieu and turn them to the effect of achieving Bodhisattva-hood? Essentially, building a raft from the flotsam and jetsam of a society that inhumanly bends you to its damnable rules and riding it down the existential maelstrom of ultimate negation, successfully, via the application of a perfectly understood principle?Technically, the film is an absolute wonder. Gilliam's famous penchant for swimming, kaleidoscopic detail is expressed very, very well here. I've always loved this. Also, for such a bizarre film, there's an aspect to production which is strangely "old school": Specifically, the script feels like a stageplay with a fingernail grip on discernible narrative, the actors driven by ogrelike forces to breathe life into it in spite of itself. Again, another cause for the film to alienate some, yet find a niche in my tired old heart; when done "right" this works for me, and by my lights it's done right here.

I'm a huge Terry Gilliam fan, and I love all the themes in this movie, plus I adore Christophe Waltz, but Gilliam somehow gets this is all wrong. The sets are O.K. but the dialogue is all off, badly written, somehow clumsily executed, this film disappoints in a myriad of ways, which is sad, given Brazil and 12 Monkeys' success. What Gilliam usually does well, madness, the incoherence of modernity, technology and man, the workplace is somehow lost in this movie. It's routine. What could be brilliant is lacklustre, what could shock and amaze, bores. The VR suit, the love-story, the boss, the boy genius, the programming, it's all 2-dimensional and paper-thin. It's just a bad movie. There were so many options for this: so many possibilities, yet, the plot is so simple, so basic, it's as if it were written for a 12 year-old. Perhaps that's the point.

It is an absolute travesty to give this movie less than the highest rating, if for no other reason than to encourage the brilliant Terry Gilliam to make more films! I'm a big Terry Gilliam fan. I watched this last night and was blown away by it. It's a return to form in the manner of 'Brazil', with the dystopian future this time being a neon colored one of all consuming commercialism with no substance or soul. Christoph Waltz and Matt Damon are outstanding as the two polar opposites attempting to find the secret to 'life, the universe and everything' for two very different reasons. It's a visual tour de force that will leave you thinking.