It is the story of a very talented computer operator who faces a strange path in his life. This young man is assigned an official mission as he tries to prove the zero theory that says the universe ends with nothing, which makes life really meaningless.
It's bursting with Gilliam's trademark manic energy, but the focus and execution are so soft that that energy ends up derailing the film instead of invigorating it.
While it doesn't match his previous masterpieces, it frequently manages to recapture the anti-authoritarian spirit and whirling dervish quality of his best work.
Gives one the sense that the ex-Monty Python-ite thinks he's at a filmmaker version of the Last Chance Saloon, manufacturing and recycling as fast as he can.
Qohen and Bainsley are quirkily interesting though being little more than cyphers. And as in any Gilliam picture, there are some crazy flights of fancy, but this one is never grounded enough to come alive.
There is something so generous and so full-hearted in this profusion that to complain seems churlish, but "The Zero Theorem" has a bothersome ratio of misses to hits.
The ultimate irony of this film is that it revolves around the old thematic chestnut of pointless existence, yet ultimately finds little reason for its own.
