This movie makes no sense. It is apparently based on Mayan spiritual mythology about the after life, except when I try and google the subject (because the movie didn’t make any sense you see), I can’t seem to find any reference to the ideas in the movie.

The Fountain tells the story of Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz in three different eras, as the commericals I had seen on Space said (in addition to allusion to the fountain of youth). The movie is nothing like this at all! The stories in all three time periods are told in parallel and relate to each other very loosely if you assume that the characters somehow found a way to live forever (which they never even tried to explain). If you can’t suspend your disbelief that much, it just seems like they got cheap and used the same actors in all three stories.

The plot is no better. I understood the story of the present day story, and it’s a mediocre at best; a scientist struggles to cure brain tumors while ironically his wife suffers from a brain tumor. What I never did understand was the connection between that story and the past (Spanish Conquistador) and future (in space) story, aside from a means to introduce Mayan theology and present the director’s not-really-thought-provoking ideas.

I had two reasons for wanting to see this movie: 1) Because it was directed by Darren Aronofsky who made interesting movies (Requiem For A Dream, ϖ), and 2) it looked pretty and was created without CGI. Yes, it was pretty, not pretty good, just pretty. The Fountain is a marginally two stars out of five movie.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: moviereview