The Zero Theorem (2014)

A more skilled director and writer could have presented the exact same ideas with a more comprehensible and interesting plot and without all the LSD involved. However, our friend Terry decides to camouflage the simplicity of the real message with a psychedelic atmosphere and bizarre characters. The audience is persuaded by this overdose of visual stimulation into thinking that the meaning is more complex than they thought, erroneously increasing the intellectual value of the film.

I had no clue what kind of movie I was going to watch before I saw Terry Gilliam's name in the opening credits. As soon I saw his name I knew it was going to be a weird movie. Nothing wrong with a bit of strangeness but with The Zero Theorem I was a bit disappointed. Because it's basically about nothing. It all has no point. If life has no point than this movie got it right. But to me it was just too confusing. I still give it a five because of the filming and the weird surroundings. And of course for the excellent acting of Christoph Waltz. He's a great actor and even in movies about nothing he stands out. But great acting and good filming don't mean necessarily a good movie. It was too pointless for me.

This was a very good film.Christoph Waltz played his part as the lonely, territorial man with a higher level intelligence. As the film brings you sadness and as you watch this film you feel caught in the moment. As you imagine your self like his character. but this is also a tragedy, as I cried for the first time watching it. This is by far the best of Terry Gillian. Although, I showed this to my self assured 14 year old and she thought it was inappropriate. So I recommend this for an edgier crowd with maturity and sense. But it takes a few good watches of the film to understand the last twenty minutes of the film. I would watch it again but be cautious as it is not for the light heart ed.

Terry Gilliam has had a couple of motifs running through his movies. "Time Bandits" and "Brazil" (and also the opening sequence of Monty Python's "Meaning of Life") look at the desire to escape from our modern world, while "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen", "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus" go for full surrealism (I'm not sure where "The Fisher King" fits among these). But with "The Zero Theorem", Gilliam completes an unofficial trilogy: dystopia. "Brazil" depicts a bureaucratic, Orwellian society, while "Twelve Monkeys" depicts a future where a disease has forced humanity underground.In this movie, Christoph Waltz plays a programmer trying to find out whether or not life has any meaning (hey, an indirect reference to Monty Python's movie). But the society that the programmer inhabits is what caught my eye. It looks like a cross between "Blade Runner" and "Brazil", with a little bit of "Minority Report". Advertisements follow people everywhere. How could anyone even think about life's meaning in this setting? I actually wasn't as fond of this movie as I was of Gilliam's other movies. It was slower than most of his movies. Of course, one could argue that the movie's philosophical element required it to move slowly. Maybe so, but I still prefer Gilliam's other movies more. Maybe worth seeing once.