JetFred

I am heavily biased in favor of Terry Gilliam, and this movie is satisfying in some ways if you're a fan. Waltz is always great, and the visuals are as strong as you'd expect, but the idea is only partially fleshed out, leaving the movie short and with a weak ending. I would like to imagine there's a stronger director's cut somewhere out there, but that may not be so.

In fact, it's quite possible to watch the movie and then find a few months later that you can't really remember what the premise was...something about the theory that nothing has meaning. But because it's a Gilliam movie, you won't forget the quirkiness of the actors, from Waltz's picking away at what looks like a video game controller to manipulate data in a program, to the neurotic characters he encounters. The strongest visuals and best ideas come from an unlikely relationship that Waltz's character forms with a pretty young girl who leads an interesting virtual life. His reluctant interaction with a young male helper is not as interesting.

But true to Gilliam's style, the best set idea is the bizarre building where Waltz's character lives. It is reminiscent of both the cheap sets from Jabberwocky that were made to look like a castle interior and the more elaborate sets in Twelve Monkeys that were busy with mess and technology. With Gilliam, you know that's what you are going to get, and you get it here, you just wish there was a bit more.

So if you can tolerate the feeling that you've seen an unfinished piece from Gilliam's notebook of ideas, and you love his work enough to watch it regardless, it is worth watching and filing away.