The Fountain is a HORRIBLE MOVIE

This post has nothing to do with Taco Bell, but I simply cannot restrain the explosion of anger and hatred I have for the new Aronofsky film, THE FOUNTAIN, so I'm unleashing it all on you champions.

The Fountain is a film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky starring Hugh Jackman. It's a metaphysical epic attempting to deal with death and rebirth. It has three storylines: a 1500s-era Spanish conquistador searching for the Fountain of Youth, a contemporary doctor searching for the cure to his wife's terminal cancer, and a future space traveller (from the year 2500, according to ads) searching space for a dying star. In short: it's the worst movie I've ever seen.

By way of background, I've been excited about this film for years. Aronofsky directed the movies Pi and Requiem for a Dream, both of which I enjoyed and were well reviewed. Rather than taking Hollywood's many offers to direct blockbusters, he wrote The Fountain, which, according to internet script reviews, was genius. Brad Pitt was cast and grew this beard for the role. It was going to me a $100 million film, so apparently somebody besides me was excited about it. Then Brad quit (smart move). For the past few years, Aronofsky tried to resurrect the film and finally convinced Hugh Jackman to be the lead. Which bring us to today.

The three story lines, the weaving together of which I expected to be really neat, turned out to be a stupid convention with no payoff. The writing and performing in all three was trite and melodramatic. The philosophy--if it can be called that--is nonsense. And the last ten minutes, meant to be a revelation, are sheer idiocy on a scale that inspires murderous rage. The first hour-and-a-half is a 9 on a bad movie scale of 10. The awfulness of the last ten minutes break the scale and simply can't be expressed in words. Snapshot: Jackman murders a flaming-sword-wielding Aztec priest, then a tree squirts semen on his hand, he pretends to be Sean Connery from the Last Crusade, and then he transforms into a bunch of plastic plants. Oh yeah, and Buddha shows up. FUCK YOU FOR STEALING $10 FROM ME!

I respect when artists try to do something new and tackle big issues. Aronofsky has certainly done so with The Fountain. These attempts are praiseworthy, but not necessarily the results. Simply being different and ambitious do not make a piece of art good. In fact, I'd say most of these attempts fail at being great art. But those few successes are among the greatest of all art and make worthwhile the failures. In other words, it's a gamble worth taking--high risk, high reward. Kudos for trying, Darren, but you rolled a craps with this one. The Fountain is a spectacular, monumental, failure.

Never, never, never see this movie.