T'ai Chi in Space

From the moment I saw the preview for The Fountain, I was fired up. It looked bold in every way with a future-past epic quality that I find irresistible. Sadly, it was out for like three days in the ATX, so I missed it. But now that I am not on the run from the cable company, I can use the old pay-per-view again, so the lovely Sherpa and I threw down a virtual $3.95 to check out Aranofsky's latest opus while Fox found it necessary to show the Redskins/Lions game. Seriously, 'Skins/Lions? That's what you're bringing to the table?

The Fountain
At its core, The Fountain is about the search for eternal life, or the acceptance of death, or a quasi-mythical dying nebula that symbolizes the universality of all things and shows us clearly that only through death can we achieve eternal life...or some other bullshit like that.

We open on Hugh Jackman as a sword-wielding Conquistador fighting his way through a Mayan temple in search of the Tree of Life. He comes face-to-face with a man who wears a headdress of mighty horns and brandishes a flaming sword. Totally badass. Everything I had hoped for.

Cut to: A bald Hugh Jackman sitting in the lotus position amidst an open-chakra-inspired tripscape that looks like something hippies jack off to. Not nearly as kickass as flaming swords.

Cut to: A modern day Hugh Jackman with a decent haircut and a strong jaw. I have to give it him, he's a handsome man. In modern times, Hugh is a doctor married to Rachel Weisz. Poor Rachel is dying and somewhat forcing her American dialect. She's OK with what cancer will do to her, but Hugh isn't. Luckily, he's a doctor conducting monkey surgery and experimenting with a concoction made from the sap of a mysterious tree found in South America or Florida. I missed that part.

Anyway, Rachel has written a book (all but the last chapter) called The Fountain. She wrote it with an oldschool pen and an ink well, which I am envious of, because if I tried to write a book that way I would surely quit after Chapter 1. As Hugh reads the book, we move back and forth between Inquisition-era Spain (Weisz is the Queen), modern time monkey surgery, and futuristic Downward-Facing Dog Land. Weisz asks Hugh to finish the book, but he's not down. He only wants to cure his Love and, like so many alchemists before him, find a way to stop Death. Sadly, poor Rachel dies just as Hugh discovers that he's discovered a cure. Now, he will finish the book and come to terms with loss and all that.

OK, at times The Fountain looks awesome. At other times, not so much. And the sight of a bald Hugh Jackman sitting with legs folded/palms to the sky in a floating bubble is just laughable. As is the image of his shadow doing T'ai Chi in front of a star-speckled backdrop. At times, the movie is also incredibly sad, and if you're a little girl like me, you might even shed a tear. However, at other times, the dialogue reads like a bad episode of "Days of Our Lives" without that cool guy who wears the patch. Patch, I believe, was his name.

I had no intention of going Grieco on The Fountain, but floating, golden-light-bathed Hugh demands it of me. The nebula “Shibulba” demands it of me, and the poor fake monkeys that had to undergo surgery demand it of me.

I give The Fountain 2 ½ – Griecos. Had it just been the Spain/Mayan stuff, it easily would have been 4.