BEFORE: Another film that didn't fare so well at the box office - I heard it was hard to understand. But it's about time-travel (I think) so let's get it watched.
THE PLOT: Three stories - one each from the past, present, and future - about men in pursuit of eternity with their love.
AFTER: Jeez, I don't even know where to begin in describing this one...there are three storylines, all starring Hugh Jackman - but are they all supposed to be the same person, in the past, present and future? Is one of the storylines real, and the others imagined or fictional? I know, they're all fictional, but are some more fictional than others?
We see Jackman as a Spanish Conquistador, searching the Mayan lands for a lost treasure, also as a doctor researching a cure for his dying wife's tumor, and a bald man traveling through space in a large bubble with a tree.
The movie serves as something of a kit, I feel like it gave me the pieces of a storyline, and made me do the heavy lifting. The complication lies in determining where the storylines intersect, if at all, and what it all might mean. As best as I can determine, the lost treasure is the tree of life, or the "Fountain", and after finding it and drinking its sap, the Conquistador becomes immortal - centuries later, the man is the doctor, searching for a way to keep his love from dying (and aging), and then for some reason in the future, brings the tree across the galaxy to the nebula his wife saw with her telescope.
But I feel this is only one of many possible interpretations - for example, is the tree in the third story the same tree from the first story, or the second one? The dying wife in the second story was writing a novel, does the novel contain the first story, or the third story, or both?
The dazzling effects shouldn't be a substitute for actual events, or some kind of, I don't know, plotline? Is that too much to ask? It's sort of like the last 10 minutes of "2001: A Space Odyssey" - that really arty, confusing Kubrickian stuff - got expanded into an entire feature.
Also starring Rachel Weisz and Ellen Burstyn, with a cameo by Ethan Suplee.
RATING: 3 out of 10 monkey brains
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