It's either incredibly intelligent, or incredibly stupid.

Rating: 8/10 (19 June 2000)

After watching this film, and beginning to puzzle over just what the heck I'd seen, the above came to be my conclusion. This film has a lot to say-and it is, for the most part, a scathing and accurate critique on our materialistic society. The narrator has a void in his life, that he finds he can't fill with more things. However, the movie steadily gets more chaotic, perhaps on purpose, as he begins to fill that void with self-destruction/anarchy instead. It's scary, and it's supposed to be, so I did not fault the movie on this. I don't mind a movie not coming to a clear plan of action after its running time. Complex social directives are not going to be spanned/solved in 2 hours+, and this particular one is no exception.
Perhaps my biggest problem with the film was that confusion resulting from the anarchy, however. It's like the movie wanted it both ways-it wanted to rail against the chaos and mindlessness of Tyler's Fight Club, and the resulting "Project Mayhem", but still offering such a bleak world that that chaos may be the only way out. It's the same unnaturally hopeless feeling I get from Hardy's "Jude the Obscure", though that may be an unfair comparison. Then again, Hardy may have enjoyed this movie, who knows...
I can't finish this review without commenting on the *surprise* ending, though a responsible covering of said ending would involve spoilers, so I'll be vague. Suffice it to say that it's somewhat of a copout, and makes much of the rest of the movie make even less sense than it did before. It creates plot holes where there shouldn't be. Maybe it worked better in the novel, but I don't know. In closing, I'll just say that whatever you think about this movie, you'll probably break the first two rules of Fight Club over it. And in this idea-starved climate, maybe that makes it worthwhile watching on its own.