Comments on: The Fountain

By: Dresden fan

Dresden fan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:46:56 +0000

This is one of the worst film ever. Unfortunately, I did not read the reviews first before renting it. You probably have to be a Zen Buddhist to appreciate this one…total waste of time!!!
Rating: 1 / 5

By: Harvey A. Lewis

Harvey A. Lewis — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:40:55 +0000

Don’t waste your money or time. There really isn’t any story line. No plot. No moral guidance. The hero does not save the girl, he may not even have saved the monkey. There are a lot of views of a bald hero confined to a mystic bubble floating through space towards a “dying star” while everything else is floating in the other direction. This is a clear case of “emperor’s new clothes.”
Rating: 1 / 5

By: Adam Donaghey

Adam Donaghey — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:31:32 +0000

Given a purely visual sequence, Darren Aronofsky presents a stream of images and music, stunning and imaginative. His eye for design is remarkable and new, and his ear for composition is breathtaking. His narrative, however, is something quite different. Not only trite and boorish, but yet another example of careless ineptitude, with regards to key elements of story-telling. Much like Aronofsky’s “breakthrough” film, ‘Pi,’ ‘The Fountain’ appears overly-pretentious, cliché, and utterly annoying. While in the theater, I remember thinking more about what I was going to do after seeing the film, than the film itself.

I’ve often found that many people are too quick to judge an inescapably mundane film some sort of artistic achievement, purely due to its deviation from the norm. If you don’t understand it, it’s probably smart; right? In the case of ‘The Fountain’, I found myself wishing I didn’t understand the film; that way, at least I could play ignorant. At least then I could leave the theater with some sense of wonder. Instead, I left completely unchanged. Aronofsky had done the same thing again: he’d created something workaday, yet packaged it in something grand.

For all its mesmerizing visuality and hypnotic harmony, ‘The Fountain’ merely toys with the Big Questions, and never really gives any incite. Aronofsky really cuts off his nose to spite his face with all of his hack-editing and repetitive sequences. Issues like ‘love conquering science,’ ‘man questioning God,’ and the ‘acceptance of death’ are strewn together and mixed widely without any forethought or strategy. The great tragedy of this film rests solely in those who have faith in it: as noted throughout, the soundtrack is phenomenal and the cinematography is right-on; the acting is superb; and the passion is without question, dignified. Unfortunately, these virtues seem wasted given the shallowness of the film as a whole.
Rating: 2 / 5

By: Steven Moreland

Steven Moreland — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:16:55 +0000

I’ll sum this up in layman’s terms…1.HARD TO FOLLOW. 2. HARD TO GET INTO. 3. NEVER understood it. 4. THE ENDING? HUH? . 5.Cannot believe Hugh Jackman would make a movie as horrible as this.
Rating: 1 / 5

By: Reviewer

Reviewer — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:18:52 +0000

Summary: take a Spanish conquistador, a shaved tree-hugger and a monkey brain surgeon as embodiments of the same fellow; add to it generous quantity of corny cliched dialogues and you have the Fountain.

It is an over-"intellectualized" and over-"spiritualized" sci-fi drivel melodrama kind of a flick.

For very select audience.
Rating: 1 / 5