Nothing

NOTHING (3+ outta 5 stars) Another weird premise from the director of the movie "Cube". This time around there are two main characters who find themselves and their home transported to a mysterious white void. There is literally NOTHING outside of their small two-story house. Intriguing to be sure, but I thought the comedic tone established for this movie from the get-go was extremely ill-conceived. There needs to be some humour, certainly... and I have no problem with the humour that was eventually derived from the plight of our two heroes (their final "showdown" was definitely a hoot)... but I really think the movie would have been a lot better off if it had stayed more rooted in reality in the beginning. After watching the movie I watched the "Making of" feature on the DVD and a short trailer at the end is almost totally devoid of the "sillier" comedic aspects... making it look like a completely different (and slightly better) movie. The last half hour of the movie is where things really start to come together... similar in a way to the recent movie "Primer." The actors are fine when they are not overdoing the comedy shtick. They are really quite believable in their more "normal" moments. I was probably ready to write this movie off as a failed experiment at the midway point... but it won me over by the end. (And keep watching past the credits for the final scene... just don't ask me to explain it.)

This surely has a lot of stuff to be called Nothing.

It was quite creative and original, and most of all - well acted.

A couple of good lines here and there, some almost emotional moments, but this movie never takes itself seriously and neither should you.

I was ok with its visual and overall style, but a more focused direction would've made this so much better. It was also a little confusing to see both actors from the Cube (plus the Director) and even hearing some of the Cube's sound effects re-cycled here.

I still wasn't sure what they were going for, probably a bit of everything. This is definitely not a film for everyone, not because it's too smart, but because it's original.

Nothing as an idea had huge potential, but the movie just didn't quite pull it off. First of all, there is no reason ever given to why these guys suddenly have this power to wish away everything they hate. Immediately they wish away everything but their house (because they're reclusive agoraphobic nerds) which sort of writes the Writer into a corner. It doesn't take long for the characters to explore nothing and then learn to live in it & enjoy it. Instead the characters could have spent a lot more time in the normal world exercising this new power slowly throughout the movie until maybe toward the end there is Nothing. This would have had a more satisfying storyline as the viewer could sort of feel like they're vicariously vanishing life's problems along with the character, only to learn the moral is that if you don't learn to live with your problems, you'll eventually wish away EVERYTHING....just an idea.

When it comes to IMDb comments for this movie we have a Matrix 3 situation - either folks love it and praise it to heaven or they venomously loathe it.

If I want to be objective I will say that this is a..well.. interesting movie. One of those "what if" movies where the creator has a weird idea and than wraps a movie around it. In "Cube" it was "What if a bunch of different people would be put in a strange cube with all sorts of traps inside it." In "Nothing" it is much simpler - "What if two guys suddenly found themselves in nothing - in a completely literal meaning of the word."

The idea is interesting and unusual and very attractive in some ways. You must be at least interested in questions like "How does this 'nothing' work, really?" or "How will they get out of it, if at all?". In other words, with idea like that you can hardly go wrong, can you?

Well, as a matter of fact, you kind of can. The biggest issue with this movie is how you (the viewer) will react to the tone of the movie and (even more important) how you'll react to the characters. The director chose a comedic, over-the-top approach, with lots of close-ups, shouting, overacting and quite a bit of Tim Burtonness thrown into it. If you accept this tone, you'll have fun and probably love it. If the two guys screaming at each other start getting on your nerves the movie will become a chore, since there is (literally) nothing else to occupy your attention.

For me it was a bit of both. At times I was amused, at times bored, at times extremely irritated by the unorthodox way the characters reacted to the situation they found themselves in. All in all I've found it to be an interesting experience, but nothing to get too excited about. Little flick to pass the time. If you like movies that are a bit off, or like to see something different than rent this. If you keep your expectations reasonably low, you'll probably like it. In the end, I've found myself wandering what if the characters were more down-to-earth, more believable (as were those poor people stuck in a Cube)? I think THEN this could be a truly great movie.

Well in any case, it's waaay better than that godawful "Hypercube".

6/10

P.S. I simply have to put a note of this - the DVD edition shamelessly tries to promote this as a horror movie. The cover shows a screaming mouth, a terrified eye and a ghastly hand with see-through blood/veins in it. It was even situated at the horror shelf at my DVD rental store and conveniently didn't have a genre label on it. While I understand this is done to up the sales a bit it is in my opinion totally unacceptable and will probably result in bad reputation for this movie. Many will rent/buy it believing they will see a "Cube"-like horror/mystery movie and then be completely put off by the light tone and silliness of the whole thing. God, I hate false advertising. Shame on you, distributors.

Charlie Kauffman has made weird metaphysical angst popular, but this canadian gem makes it hilarious.

Like most weird films the less said about plot the better but let's set the scene, two friends Anthony and Dave have been together since childhood, they can't cope with the world and eventually this means they no longer have to. But that is where even more problems begin.

I loved this film, it made me smile long after the final credits and that is a rare experience with so many mass produced pieces of "nothing" out there.

Don't miss this.