What can I say, The Prestige triggered and broke down my fantasist node, and I just love a good natural high so I followed it with this overblown sequel to 2005’s What the Bleep do We Know!? and quite honestly, the subtitle is apt, it really made me feel a little like Alice. I’m first to admit I have no clue of the science that these documentaries discuss, except that I hear from the IMDb message boards (that reliable font of knowledge) that it’s all pretty shaky – the most scientific things I’ve read since school are the works of Carl Sagan and that’s all I personally need. These movies take a similar approach to Sagan (though for some reason I think his baloney detection kit might go off the chart at some point), really just giving some kind of hope through babble that sort of makes sense.

It’s a little long, and there are obvious things that could be cut (they reuse all the deaf-woman-bimbo-roommate stuff from the first movie, just spinning it differently – it’s worth mentioning, though, I really liked seeing these little scenes again, they’re very sweetly done at times), plus some stuff just plain doesn’t make sense on the most basic level (“The average person loses their attention span every 6-10 seconds … per minute!” ... errr, huh?)

It’s silly, ridiculous even, but you can’t help but let it make you ponder if you have any grasp on fantasy … so to people like me – who I think officially spend more time in fantasy than reality now, lol – clearly it’s a really comforting couple of hours. If you like the idea that anything is possible and nothing makes any sense, you just have to see these movies, it’s simple as that. And if you don’t like that idea, then I shed a tear for you. Okay, here’s another reason to watch it: it features a guy who looks not only but exactly like Kip from Napoleon Dynamite lol. There’s a wonderful segment on body image, too. The whole Flatworld segment is pretty awesome too. And if none of this has convinced you, let me leave you with a quote from the end credits, that follows all the disclaimers, as wonderful a closer as that brilliant opener quote in The Kid Stays in the Picture:

“Agreement is not necessary – thinking for ones’ self is.”

That’s one piece of logic you can’t argue with.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 5:46 am in 4 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.