Two hours can feel like a millennium

Rating: Null/10 (25 August 2010)

I sometimes wonder if I'm sharing the same planet. I recently rented this film from Netflix, anticipating a time-warping, mind-bending experience. Instead, I found a new archetype for fatuous pretension. Under-exposed film and sparkling lights cannot mask empty prattle. I kept waiting for the camera's f Stop to be adjusted, and something meaningful to happen. No luck!
As one who has read and enjoyed science fiction for sixty years, from H.G.Wells to Bradbury, Asimov and Clarke...from Jules Verne to H.P. Lovecraft, I found this abomination to be devoid of any value. The scientist ranted and moaned, and most tellingly, swept and scattered reams of research documents in a fit of pique. Had the rest of the film dwelt on him gathering and re-assembling the papers, it would have been more entertaining. In desperation, I clicked "fast forward" hoping to find something, anything! to stir the ashes.No luck.
In an old joke, a man climbs the Himalayas seeking an answer to the meaning of life. On a windswept crag he encounters a mystic sage...
"Please, sir, I've traveled the world,hoping to discover the Meaning of Life...can you help me?"
After sitting impassively for an hour, the old man replied, "Life is a fountain pen." Incredulously, "LIFE IS A FOUNTAIN PEN??!!"
"Life ISN"T a fountain pen?"
Now THAT was profound.
A deeper mystery--who puts up the money for films like "The Fountain?