Nonsensical ado about nothing

Rating: 1/10 (6 April 2010)

"Requiem For a Dream" was a powerful, shocking and original piece of storytelling, but anyone expecting something similar from "The Fountain" on the strength of Aronofsky's earlier project is likely to be astonished at his latest film's ineptitude. In an attempt at epic scale the director has conceived a trilogy spanning light years and millenniums, but none of the three narratives from three different eras possesses a shred of credibility or vitality - and the end result is meaningless blather about the deathless nature of love.
A Conquistador quest set in Inquisition Spain and South America plays like a mash-up of Conan and Underworld. A frantic search for a death-cure in a near contemporary laboratory is a hackneyed Twilight Zone melodrama drowning in tragic sentimentality and bad acting. A metaphysical space odyssey segment resembles a tired Star Trek episode directed by the Brothers Grimm. If this film hadn't been dressed up in some moody cinematography and art direction, everybody would instantly recognize it for what it is - a triumph of intoxicated self-importance over substance.