Terry Gilliam crafts another unique sci-fi vision which blends existential angst, techno philosophy, meaning of life and love.  It is like a mix of BRAZIL meets the Warren Ellis comic TRANSMETROPOLITAN.    Christoph Waltz is Qohen Leth, a reclusive computer genius who gets permission from Management (Matt Damon in white hair and wild outfits) of Manicore to work in his church-like home on the condition he works on solving the Zero Theorem to prove the universe started with nothing and will end with nothing.   Along the way he gets visited by cyber prostitute Bainsley (Melanie Thierry), his supervisor (David Thewlis), a Shrink computer program (Tilda Swinton), and Management’s teenage genius son Bob.   Leth is trying to find the meaning of his own life as he waits for a certain phone call during all these years.

 

THE ZERO THEOREM is like the cousin to BRAZIL that will still entertain, but it isn’t the masterpiece that BRAZIL is.   I love the world created in the movie and the blink-and-you-miss-it comment about the church of Batman the Redeemer.   The production and costume design is like THE FIFTH ELEMENT and BRAZIL had a baby with THE ZERO THEOREM being the result.   The cast is great even the script isn’t a very focused as it ramble through ideas as the character is caught up in his own neurotic behavior which is only controlled to an extent when they hire a prostitute so he can be more focused on the work of solving the Zero Theorem and even sending Bob to fix the computer (and communicate) with him is another way of Management trying to keep Leth on the job.  BRAZIL said everything clearer than THE ZERO THEOREM does, but maybe the script written by someone else appealed to Terry Gilliam do to the scattershot nature of the main character and maybe the narrative is supposed to reflect that.   Go rent it.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

BEHIND THE SCENES featurette (18 minutes)- which is a comprised version of the other three featurettes along with interviews with the cast and crew as it is revealed the costumes were done on a shoe string budget due to some material they bought in bulk from China

VISUAL EFFECTS OF CRUNCHING ENTITIES featurette (6:44) that focuses on the computer graphics they created for the movie

ZERO THEOREM COSTUMES (28:28)- a detailed featurette as costume designer Carlo Poggioli talks about the design of the various costumes in the movie including the costumes that Matt Damon sweated in and various design sketches and behind-the-scenes footage

THE SETS- a look at how they transform locations (of Bucharest, Romania) into weird sets and the sets they build like the church home that Leth lives in

 

Theatrical trailer

 

Previews for SUPREMACY (which looks like a remake of THE DESPERATE HOURS), LET’S KILL WARD’S WIFE (dark comedy), and THE LOOKALIKE.

 

FINAL ANALYSIS:   THE ZERO THEOREM is an unfocused sci-fi film which is great to look at while being somewhat entertaining.  The behind-the-scenes extras give a great look at the making of the film from costumes to production design.

 

This review is ©1-21-2015 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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