Beyond Belief!

Rating: 1/10 (25 September 2009)

Wonderfully lavish production values, a series of truly excellent performances, and great cinematography. All tragically wasted on one of the most incredibly tedious and pointless films ever made. Rendered all the more painful by its laboured pretensions to philosophical depth and emotional significance.
There are some poignant moments and at least one sub-plot that manages to wade against the crushing tedium of the whole to briefly, feebly, flicker across the screen before the audience is once again plunged into the desolate morass of myopic self-indulgence that characterises the rest of the film.
Most painful of all is the voice-over which rams poetic but meaningless metaphors and platitudes down the audience's throats until they become grateful to be returned to the boredom.
I have never in my life been so tempted to walk out of a cinema, and I have seen some absolute stinkers in my time. The only thing preventing me was the knowledge that I would be accused of not giving the film a chance or not viewing the work in its intended context.
Those hours of my life are gone forever, lost to one of the worst films I have ever seen. Beyond Babylon A.D., End of Days, or even Alien vs Predator. The world is very much the worse for this festering piece of dross having entered it.