neat visuals, but an over-ambitious plot and a LOT of over-acting

Rating: 3/10 (14 November 2006)

It's good to see a filmmaker really reaching - but I'm finding more and more that, for my taste, Darren Aronofsky had better results when he had more limitations. I'm referring to Pi, of course, definitely my favorite of his films so far, and I'd go so far as to call it a classic of independent film-making.
I like Requiem for the most part, but The Fountain, to me, just leans a bit too far on the side of film histrionics too many times.
Hugh Jackman's performance is obviously a committed one, but Aronofsky seemed to direct Jackman to just 'act' the crap out of their roles, as well as the other actors - there's very little subtlety in their performances - which is certainly not to say that they aren't capable of it, and haven't achieved it in the past. Virtually all the way through the movie, the principles have these actions and reactions which are, for lack of a better term, over-the-top most of the time. One moment towards the end involving Jackman's character, without giving it away, prompted laughter from some in the audience I was in - and laughter clearly wasn't the intention of that moment.
Visually, Aronofsky certainly doesn't disappoint. The look of both the realistic and less-realistic scenes is pretty at worst, and thrilling at best. Again, though, too many times, it feels to me like there's no enough root in the story for some of the visuals to be justified. Great visuals are good - but great visuals can only be truly grant in a movie with deeply motivated reason to be there - by the story and the plot, in my opinion.
The story and plot certainly are interesting, and worth at least trying to track with - I was actually most engaged by the present-time story. I'm all for stories and plot that deviate from the standard formula - but I'm of the mind that it has to add up in some fundamental way for the viewer SOMEhow. Clearly it has for many - but it didn't for me or for anyone else I heard from at the screening I attended.
This is NOT a bad film - you can do much worse at either the theaters currently or Blockbuster. A lot of people clearly love the film, which is why I was excited about seeing it. I wouldn't say I was let down. While the story is rather refreshing in spite of what I consider to be its problems, and the visuals were nice, I expected more.