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Visitors Review

rob o'cop 2012-05-25 06:41:48

confused kitchen sink muddle

Jaco Van Dormael has never met a cliché setup he wouldn't try to shoehorn into this movie. lots of setups we've seen before this time doneexactly the same but choreographed to perfection, lit and shotbeautifully like a car commercial, but still a cliché, and I kind ofexpect more from my cinema. Guy trapped in a sinking car, boy chasing atrain with mother holding out hand, cryo life support pods, proms anddying wishes, every movie cliché there is all crow-bared into thisfilm. All that money you can see on the screen, but it came across assomething less than meaningful.I'm not sure who was responsible for the music choices in this moviebut they were hardly enlightened either. Tracks we've heard in ahundred other movies here to make you wince at the obviousness of theirpresence.Jared Leto was also particularly bad. He wasn't once convincing.wearing a set of dark rimmed glasses doesn't make you older, he justlooked like a youth with glasses and not a father of 3 with a careerand wife. He's also under the miles of make up for the old guy but thethrill of that was truly killed by Brad Pitts similar exploits inBenjamin Button.There were good performances in this. The three wives were great aswere the teen actors.I just feel disappointed after watching this. So much talent and moneywent into it yet it rang hollow. It did have some great ideas but theywere watered down with the clichés, It had some wonderful technicallybrilliant camera and staging work but without the cohesive story andthe average acting and cliché elements it was all weakened.This looks like a movie where director Jaco van Dormael pulled in everyfavor he had owning to him, his big break movie with a ton of cashthrown at it, and he dropped the ball.

SebastienPatenaude 2012-05-24 23:58:03

Awesome but not for everyone

How to review this film without giving too much away? Throughout thefilm, I was constantly surprised and amazed. I think my mouth washanging slightly open a few times from the brilliance on display. I wastotally captivated from start to finish. Taken simply, it's aphilosophical sci-fi film, but it's so much more than that. It's aboutchoices, destinies, astrophysics, dreams and memories, just to name afew themes. Taken at its simplest, it's the jumbled recollections ofthe last mortal man, 118 years old, on Earth in 2092. The problem isthat his memories are in total disorder and contradictory. In practice,it means that this is a very non-linear experience in terms of time andspace, real and imaginary, showing you results of important choiceseither way. It doesn't focus on just 2 alternate lives either, thingsconstantly branch out. You would think the film would be a mess, butit's surprisingly cohesive, gripping and even quite touching. I'm suresome will find it confusing, but that's part of the point: Mr. Nobody'smemories seem confused and appearances might be deceiving. I found it extremely romantic despite the fact there are 3 verydifferent love interests. One might say that sometimes the dialogue inromantic parts was corny, but I think that the most beautifuldeclarations of love can be the simplest as long as they are sincere.They felt that way here. The acting was top-notch all over the boardwith no weak performance in sight. Mr. Nobody's makeup and voice as anold man were perhaps a little distracting but nothing major. It's not aspecial effects extravaganza, but what was seen was quite imaginativeand beautiful to behold. I think the contrast with the more mundanestuff going on makes them even more impressive. Visually, it has anincredible number of different angles and viewpoints all extremely wellshot. What's amazing is that the (often) brilliant transitions flow sowell from one to another without being jarring.There are so many story threads (most fascinating), so many changes oftones (whimsical to tragic) and so much range (from intimate tograndiose). I think people who like to analyze films would have a fieldday with this one although it's possible they would nitpick on theborrowed elements. There's also lots of food for thought and shouldprovoke very interesting discussions afterwards especially on whatmight have happened if choices in your life had been different.Contrary to most films where I tend to think of what I will write in myreview as the film is going on, it did not really happen here. I wastotally absorbed and that's rare. The choice of songs and musics,mostly known, was excellent and added a lot especially in romanticparts. I'm even considering buying the soundtrack. Mr. Nobody is achallenging but very rewarding film to watch . I don't think it's foreveryone, mostly because of its non-linear structure, but those whoappreciate unconventional films like Brazil, Eternal Sunshine of theSpotless Mind, Vanilla Sky or Big Fish should be quite pleased. I lovedMr. Nobody and it has become one of my new favorite films. To be quitehonest, I wish I could see it again right now... Very highlyrecommended particularly with someone special. Rating : 9.5 out of 10 (not full 10 because ending could have beenbetter)

jbg667 2012-05-22 14:05:12

An exercise in pointlessness

Take several helpings of philosophical and physics theories and blendthese together with some artsy cinematography and sci-fi backdrops tomake it appear philosophical and "highly intellectual" as some reviewshave described it. But if any of these were the goal of the makers ofthis movie, they failed miserably.The director and the writer use confusion, chaos and distraction tomake this movie appear highly cerebral. However it is a set ofdissonant scenes forcefully held together without an underlyingunifying idea pretending to be philosophical but offering no ideas,answers or even questions. It is as if someone had the philosophyalphabet cereal for breakfast in the morning and then vomited on amovie script at Noon. The ideas are all over the place, half digestedand full of bile. Some people may confuse this for intellectualism butit is nothing more than half-baked flashes of thought. It is thecacophony of ideas that makes the movie appear philosophical, but onlyin a way similar to how a carnival magician shows a coin and then makesit disappear, leaving you thinking about how he pulled it off and notabout the coin itself.The unnecessarily stretched plot runs into over two hours withoutreally needing to. One could easily cut out many of the scenes withoutlosing much of the meaning of this movie, because there is not muchmeaning to lose. In fact, one could completely skip the movie and notmiss much.

2012-05-21 21:12:29

Amazing!

This review is from: Mr. Nobody (DVD) This is a MUST have for any Jared Leto lover! This movie is incredible, and Jared is not only a talented musician he is an amazing actor that plays about 8 different people! This movie is worth every penny and such a shame it wasn't released in the US! Mr. Nobody is my favorite Jared movie hands down!

Tony 2012-05-21 00:53:08

A Derivative Pastiche

Found "Mr. Nobody" to be a difficult slog. While visually inventive andwell structured, the final effect was ennui.Note: viewed the 133 minute version.Perhaps because it was an amalgam of: "Sliding Doors," "ButterflyEffect," ". . .Benjamin Button," "Slaughterhouse 5," "Run Lola Run,""FAQ About Time Travel," "Somewhere In Time," "Retroactive," etc.The interstitial physics lectures used to advance and explain the plotfelt forced and pretentious. While it can be said of most films, thiswas the Director/Writer's singular vision, and it comes off as pet andobscure.The female leads, with the exception of Sarah Polley, are wasted. I'venever seen the vivacious Diane Kruger so bland and underutilized.However, Jared Leto's work is outstanding.Curious about the release, I found "Mr. Nobody" received limitedEuropean screenings, and is not listed on Box Office Mojo. It seems toindicate there may not be a North American theatrical release. PerhapsDVD at some point. While I'm rarely on their side, notoriouslyunintelligent Distributors may be correct in not picking up "Mr.Nobody." Sadly, this heartfelt, greatly flawed film will be little seenand wear the badge of cult classic.It may be worth your time, and might resonate. It left me cold.

minbeo2000 2012-05-20 07:15:30

A movie about choices in life, unfortunately it can't choose its own choices

It'd have been a great movies, if it didn't try to be so many things: asci-fi, a drama, a romance or a surreal movie, it wanted to be all atonce but never matured in any catalog. So after 2h35' this movies feeldragged out and unfinished at same time. First it strikes me as asurreal movie, then it backed itself up with many science facts tryingto be a sci-fi. At the end it dropped a Dues-Ex machine bomb on me, notthat i didn't expected but it's quite disappointed cause i've worked mybrain hard throughout the movie and then BOOOMMM! During the moviethere're many dramas, romances, even melodramas but with littlecharacter development cause too many characters, i mean versions ofthem. They're all too boring, too predictable to be interested in.It seem like i'm being too harsh here, it's just that i expected somuch more from this movies when i saw it's first 30'. it's a good moviereally, interesting ideas, great cinematography, good music, goodactors... it deserve a watch.

Rob Broekhof 2012-05-18 20:51:23

Complex movie for a rather simple idea

While I watched this movie, it took me some time to discover what itessentially does for me. I liked it, and I am going to watch again.Still, I took the challenge the first time I watched it, to discoverthis, and to write it down in a couple of lines.When someone is about to make a decision, there are endlesspossibilities. Even before the decision is made, for each possibilitythe possibilities are endless. It stays easy to come back on a decisionbefore the decision is made. Even when it has been lived inimagination. Everybody is out of control. Even in their own mind andimagination. Everybody is actually nobody. Choice is an illusion.

morkulv_athferion 2012-05-18 04:01:31

Engaging, but lacking in substance

From the very beginning, this movie sets out to engage the audience andconfront people with philosophical questions about time, and life.While I do like this approach, I cannot praise it too much because itsacrifices the story's coherence for a lot of drama that slows the filmdown. It is necessary to the story though, but I think the problem liesin the way the script is build up.Of course, this is still a matter of opinion, but to me whenever themovie got into the whole "multiple decisions in life" I thought it wasvery refreshing and interesting. But when the movie gets into themultiple lovers and marriages it slows down and the movie getsdownright boring in some parts. Let me just clarify that I don't haveanything against 'slow-paced' movies, or movies that don't focus asmuch on action, as long as it stays interesting or (in this case)thought-provoking. I told my friend who was watching it with me that itfeels like it was directed by multiple people.As I said, I do like the concept this movie was going for. I just hopethat in the future, a movie gets to marry interesting theoreticalpossibility's with a coherent script a little better. Because of thesomewhat fragmented result, the movie seems a bit too pretentious andoverall too pleased with itself.I'm somewhat hesitant to recommend Mr Nobody. Even though itsdefinitely engaging, I don't think this movie will obviously appeal toeverybody. Especially not to people who aren't into pseudo-scientificspeculation. But if you're open to these sort of things and similarartistic efforts, you will praise this as much as anybody else.

Vincentiu 2012-05-13 14:40:02

more than a poem

about life and its labyrinth. about small things who gives sense tocolors, meetings, hours. and circle of expectations. that is all. so,the movie can be a poem. at first sight, without many exploration. infact, it is just definition. for a silhouette who explores each part ofhis way. for the smoke of every script for obtain happiness. for finaldialog. for pages of memories. for self-definition. nothing else. andessence of this travel- mixture of nuances and fears, emotions andhidden lights is the look of central character. key to understand basicfact - his story is your story. gray, nice, sad, hopeless, ambiguous,cold, fast, gray, without precise end. each man is Mr. Nobody inrelative measure. and final confession is same - search to understand atrip out of others. out of yourself.

acticom 2012-05-12 21:35:20

Not really an original, is it?

This movie borrows heavily from a myriad of other films... a boy canpredict cataclysmic events... life progression changes dependingwhether a hero makes a train or not (remember "Sliding Doors"?)..."Life is a box of chocolates" type of philosophy... risqué teenage sexunder parents' noses ("The Dreamers" Bertolucci)... CGI effectsdepicting future architecture and transportation... travel on Mars("save 16,000 units!" - isn't this taken directly from my favorite"Total Recall"?)... etc. It is fine to borrow and bring it all togethercreating something new out of it. But this is where this movie fails.Apart from a couple of interesting one-liners this long movie does notgive us anything but annoyance. Especially irritating are the long andrepetitive love story and people walking backwards to depict thereversal of time (apparently, the director thinks his audience areidiots).This movie is one of those with a pretense of being artsy andsignificant, and many people take the bait, as they always do.I hope this review will enable *YOU* not to.

thirstyfriend : 2012-05-11 06:27:04

Unique in the best way possible

In a time where the same movies seem to be screened over and overagain, Mr Nobody truly stands out.To begin with, the main idea of this movie is The Butterfly Effect,meaning that one apparently insignificant decision in someone's lifecan change everything. Nemo Nobody, a special kid, is faced with adifficult choice that can influence his future in a number of ways.This idea however wouldn't have been properly developed without anemotional script and amazing directing skills, those of Jaco vanDormael. There is also a number of brilliant performances from thelikes of Jared Leto, Diane Kruger, Rhys Ifans and Sarah Polley (who wasoutstanding, in my opinion).I recommend this movie to anyone who is tired of all the box officehits there are these days. Trust me, you won't regret it.

stensson 2012-05-10 18:19:48

The hell of alternatives

There's a discussion about choice in many recent films. It's notsomething desirable. One of our tortures is thinking back on thealternatives in our own history. And we are almost always dissatisfied.Nemo Nobody lives in 2092 and is 120 years old. He's forced to rememberand it all starts with him making a impossible choice, being nine. Thechoice between his mother and father in a divorce.It would be better for us, if we could just accept fate, not blaming iton some obscure own responsibility. But this film lacks all too muchthe down-to-earth attitude which would have been needed. The rightquestions, but put in the wrong way.

dennispublic 2012-05-09 14:14:04

See it twice!

Making a film like this is extremely risky! It has so many complexscenes and they've all been all woven together into a huge tapestry.There are so many mistakes that could have been made; so many ways thismovie could have gone bad. But somehow Jaco Van Dormael has pulled it off, and perfectly! It'smind blowing! It's one of those films you have to see twice before youcan really put all the threads together and fully appreciate theexplosion of genius that you just witnessed.Not many directors, if any, could pull it off like Jaco has done here.I think he was able to succeed because he was the writer too; it washis baby through and through. Directing something like this wouldotherwise be impossible without that kind of intimate knowledge andpassion for the material.The writing is incredible. The directing is incredible. This guydeserves completely separate awards for both. It is truly a film unlikeany other I've seen, and definitely one of my top five favourites ofall time. It might make your head hurt a bit at first, but hang inthere - and see it twice.

Nimi Merkki 2012-05-08 20:16:58

Seems like a total disaster, but at the end all the pieces of the puzzle fall into their places.

I had never heard of the Belgian director/writer Jaco Van Dormael. Notbefore this movie. I haven't seen any other movies made by him, butwhat I had read about him/this movie from the internet, my expectationswere pretty high./SPOILERS/ It's the year 2092, and Mr. Nobody, a 118-year-old man, hasthe title 'The Last Mortal', since everybody else has immortality, ofcourse. Mr. Nobody is about to die, and he is being asked questionsabout his life. His stories are contradictory and it seems that if hewas talking about several lives instead of one.The main theme of the movie seems to be the difficulty of making theright choices in our lives. As Mr. Nobody himself puts it: 'You have tomake the right choice. As long as you don't choose, everything remainspossible.' /NO MORE SPOILERS/Right, now for the judgment. Mr. Nobody is an original film, no doubtabout that. It is not trying to be too smart-ass. Just reasonablygenius. That's a good thing. The movie lags a bit from time to time,but not disturbingly. And the wafting maple leaf... Now, where have Iseen that before? Oh yeah! But last time it was disguised as a feather.I'm talking about Forrest Gump, of course.Anyway, this movie is touching, funny and kind of sad. What more couldyou ask for? Also the special effects are pretty astonishing. What Iwould've wanted more was the sympathetic 9-year-old Nemo and thenarrating baby Nemo. This is near of being a masterpiece, and anothergreat movie amongst a few other great movies made in the year 2009.

olga1403 2012-05-05 11:53:49

Why are you not watching it RIGHT NOW?

There's one thing about this film that makes me overlook the flaws:it'slike nothing I've ever seen before. Some people walked out 20 minutesbefore the movie ended. I can't really explain to myself why ANYONEwould do that (it was really tempting to ask but I literally couldn'ttake my eyes off the screen). It's really pointless to describe theplot because this movie is so much more then any summary could say.This film has so many stylistic, tonal and narrative changes that itseems absolutely mad for the first half hour. It's easily the mostunique and worthy cinema experience in the last year, its feels verycurrent. I could go on and on about the things I loved about this filmbut there's nothing right now that I would recommend seeing more to aperson of any age, sex or taste in cinema. It's everything I could askfor in a film:funny, touching, thrilling, surreal, beautiful...

2012-05-04 20:22:17

Satisified

This review is from: Mr. Nobody (DVD) Came in promptly and in new shape as it instated. A little too pricy for this dvd since its not a blue-ray disc.

H-x-mon 2012-05-02 02:39:55

Excellent film, great mix of apt filmmaking, artistic vision and metaphysics

This is a n excellent film. As we first started watching it, I mustadmit, I was somewhat skeptical given the title. I thought this wouldbe another "artsy" mambo-jumbo where a self-indulgent indie directorwho just happened to finish a book by Hugo has taken upon him/herselfto educate the masses on their pathetic, meaningless everyday lives(preferably set in suburbia). Boy, was I wrong! And so glad I was. 20minutes into it, having watched the early life sequence, I was fullysubmerged. It wasn't just the story - the set, colors, music, camera,scene pacing - all came together beautifully to convey the deepphilosophical and artistic vision of the director. This is undoubtedlythe "director's film". It is one of those films, which is hard, if notimpossible to retell, and once watched, makes the viewer to watch itagain, and again, enjoying every single scene. This is a director'sfilm and of a capable one. Bravo! The only downside (and given the nature of the story a minor one) isweak acting by Leto. I've never been a big fan of this actor, and maybeunjustly so, but his youthful innocence sprayed all over the screenreally doesn't fit the story well. This is a minor bump though.

Julian Left 2012-05-01 22:35:06

A great story about "what-ifs" and the incredible aspect of time..

Jaco van Dormael surprised me with this non-linear story about themeanings behind the time as an adjuster of life... There is noexplanation for the end but more of a question about it: the what ifsegment of life. What if the end is no near what we think it is? Whatif the end is reversible and any action we performed in life we couldreperform after the so-called end. The point of this movie was, withouta doubt, to make yourself think about the different possibilities ofthis deep question about everything we know. By the look of that, Iagree that this director is a big fan of Kubrick's Odyssey since thismovie kind of challenges the same system of beliefs. It's a powerfulfilm, emotional I could say since it delivers a lot of messages aboutlove, hate, insanity, about what is sanity, about loneliness andprogress. It's a beautiful work and I had to give this movie credit forbeing not that original but much more interesting and well executedthan ninety percent of the movies released in the last years.The cast was my big problem. I couldn't actually like anyone besidesJared Leto. They all seem dull with their characters and had a flatapproach for them. The characters though were developed good and youcould always connect pieces from each different story without having ahard time. The best part of this movie I tend to say it was the editingwhich was simply great, lots of beautiful shots arranged in the properorder... That's what kept me interested in the movie besides the story:what should I expect from this scene? where will the movie head afterthis scene? and so on... By the way, the soundtrack fitted the moviealmost perfectly.I recommend this movie to any person who enjoys smart story lines andinteresting characters. This movie could have been executed better,without a doubt considering the decors could have been a little bitbetter, but it impressed me how much the director did with so little...

2012-04-30 09:50:02

Yum.

This review is from: Mr. Nobody (DVD) A movie with Jared Leto are the best movies.A great story and chilling scenes, like the butterfly effect buttotally worth buying.I enjoy it

2012-04-29 19:09:10

AMAZING!!!

This review is from: Mr. Nobody (DVD) This Movie Is SUPER AWESOME!!!I Recommend It To Anyone...I Can Watch It As Many Times As I Can And It'll Be Like If It Was The First Time I Watch It...I Love It... :D