I loved Brazil, 12 Monkeys, F&L, and The Imaginarium but hated Tideland and Brother's Grimm. Where does this one rank?
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Long ago men competed on a show to date a woman who competed on a show to date Flava Flav.
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Everyone's going to be telling you it's a lot like Brazil, and it is. Think of it this way: Terry Gilliam made Brazil when he KNEW that the government controls everyone's life. He made this film when he realized that it was in fact corporations.
Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey
I felt like Brazil was the 40s through a 80s filter,
ZT is like the 2010s through an 80s filter
It is the same type of world, but the government has been taken over by corporations. :)
I liked it. I wanted to see it a second time once I saw it!
Brazil is my favorite film and I can't compare it to that except in superficial ways...me thinking it is part of the same world, but at different times. I liked it better than Tideland. It was better than Time Bandits, but not as good as Brazil or 12 Monkeys.
I did not really care for Tideland either but I would say this is Terry's best film since Fear and Loathing. This feels like a Gilliam film and is loaded with his sense of chaos, absurdity, humor, being human, and his wonderful visual style. I would say don't miss it if you are a fan of his work. All the performances are great and this is a film that will reward multiple viewings.
Sadly, I think it has been quite a difficult for him to get films made over the last decade and a half but here he takes the resources he was given and makes something magical.
I think Gilliam's movies tend to be really cluttered, both in story elements and visual ones. Sometimes this results in wonders, sometimes in kind of a mess. Like all of his films, this one is a visual feast and well worth seeing for that alone. The story is the most spare and simple one he's given us so far. I found myself surprised and a bit disappointed by that, but it's still a good story. Go see it.
shareIt's very similar to Brazil, more surprising in that Gilliam got on this project late and didn't write it.
But it has many of his signatures, including the lush look, jarring sounds, steampunky set decor, and bizarre humor. No way his work could not be recognized as his, regardless of the actual story being told.
I would rank it behind Brazil and Tome Bandits, maybe even Munchausen, for cinematic excellence, and behind the Monty Python ones for comedy, but it stands pretty well on it's own for the discerning viewer harboring some whimsy.
No it's not for everyone. Not the teenage date movie.
Not so good to most of it. Far as I'm concerned, it's down there with Jabberwocky and The Brothers Grimm.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
"Zero Theorum" has lots of overlap with "Brazil" and a bit with "12 Monkeys". I rated those older films 9/10.
I rate ZT 6/10.
Why?
1. Tone and lead casting;
- The first half of ZT has some of the most over the top humor in terms of set designs that Gilliam has done.
Bicycles to power computers for instance.
- The main actor, Christoph Waltz, is miscast in that silliness. He is not a comic actor and he does not fit.
2. Tone shifts or story shifts?
"Brazil" moves from comedy to fantasy to serious drama smoothly.
ZT has pieces which do not fit as well in terms of tone.
- It might just be that the story was weak and Gilliam at this point in his career couldn't fix it.
3. Overall Casting;
Besides Waltz being miscast or the comic story being wrong, the overall quality of the cast in ZT does not match "Brazil" which had Jonathan Pryce, De Niro, Hoskins, Holm and Palin.
The female lead is OK in ZT but Helmond is better in "Brazil".
4. Compared with "Brazil", ZT doesn't have much more to say.
And that weakness is made worse by the first half of ZT being disjointed, the castng problems and being too over the top.
I rate the first half 5/10
- The second half was much better, more like a serious play, where Waltz fit.
To me ZT should have started where the second half (in the church) began.
And then the film could have built the Waltz character further, explore his emptyness and realizaitons and involve his love interest more.
It seemed that when ZT got to the big questions, that the film gives up, pushing out the love inerest and just has Matt Damon be the bad guy and then that becomes the final message.
- But Damon's character really isn't the final answer.
After all the young hacker, Bob, knows the entire situation, and except for needing sleep, he thrives in this world.
- The dilema is in the Waltz character.
And so the ending of Waltz being lost in a fantasy in ZT doesn't have nearly the same power as the fantasy idea had at the end of "Brazil".
ZT needed more confrontation by Watz with himself at the final moment of truth; who he was, what he wanted.
But ZT came up short. Again, 6/10.
BB ;-)
it is just in my opinion - imo - 🌈
Finally, a reasoned analysis of the final that compares it with other Terry Gilliam films! Thank you for this: now I’ll rent it, rather than springing for the full cost. (If it turns out that we disagree, I can always buy it later.)
Only (say) a dozen directors have made more 10/10 films (by my own reckoning) than Terry Gilliam. Almost everyone agrees that Brazil was a work of genius, and 12 Monkeys was also wonderful in a rather different way. For me, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas only got 9/10, but it’s still one of the funniest comedies that I’ve ever seen.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen were visually wonderful, but I’d rate them as 8-9 as I’m not sure either was quite as deep as his best work. (It’s been a while since I saw these and, when I did, it was under distracting conditions, with small kiddies running around interrupting things. Perhaps I should watch them again.)
Monty Python films are on a level of their own, and simply cannot be compared with most comedies. (In this way, they’re like the Marx Brothers.)
I haven’t seen Tideland or The Crimson Permanent Assurance or The Zero Theorem, so I have some catching up to do!
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