One Fantastically Moving Film

Rating: Null/10 (24 July 2002)

This is exactly what you would expect of visionary Terry Gilliam. A dark, humorous, moving film that will haunt you for a long time to come.
I don't need to review the storyline, it has been described elegantly by others. Gilliam's sense of the "technology-run-amok" is present in this work (odd mix of obsolete with the fantastic, such as 1960s style television monitors linked with obtrusive magnifying glasses and microphones) and contribute to the paranoid feeling of the future landscape. Bruce Willis' performance is nothing less than perfect: cold, lonely, beaten yet hopeful. Brad Pitt's performance is a show-stopper, as an off-kilter schizophrenic. Madeline Stowe plays an intelligent and extremely sexy psychologist who slowly comes to realize that Willis is not a lunatic, but truly a man of the future.
The most haunting scene is when Willis tearfully listens to Louis Armstrong's "It's a Wonderful World". You can literally feel Willis' torment, as you ride along on his knowledge of the future's bleakness, and the recognition of how mankind had destroyed such a beautiful earth.
Haunting, darkly humorous, and ultimately memorable.