This is the shambling zombie godfather of all vanity projects, and a living testament to the notion that true magnum opus just can't be forced into existence, although a creative mind should always aim for his/her best.
Terry Gilliam tried to pull this project together for 29 (!) years, and while he succeeded in finally finishing and releasing it, the result sucks so hard that it took me considerable strength to just stay with it for more than 10 minutes.
The "Monty Python" legend - director and one of the two screenwriters of this misfire - has given life to his fair share of interesting movies. But none of them were released during current century, and this is definitely the new all-time low.
The best that can be said about the movie is that it's a sad, sad example of how people sometimes refuse to let go things that are clearly failing.
It is not mediocre or unpolished diamond in search of a better form. The movie just doesn't work, on any level - and to add insult to the injury, it looks and feels cheap and outdated, as if done ages ago and then forgotten until now.
The result is purposeless, obscure, dull, and way too long. And the limp, graceless attempts at humor are too obvious to be funny. I didn't even smile once.
In Gilliam's head, the concept for all this surely must have sounded intriguing. The blending of real life and fantasy, magic and mundane, literature and popculture, drama and comedy - what could go wrong, right? Well, almost everything as evidenced here.
There is no emotion, no proper story - only outlines of it - or fleshed-out characters.
To put it bluntly, "Don Quixote" is filled with cartoonish situations supposed to feel wacky and funny, and people used as pawns to move the scenes along, more decorations than real figures that we could somehow relate to.
We have some interesting actors here - Adam Driver, Stellan Skarsgård, Jonathan Price - but they are not able to compensate for the material's obvious lack of wit and charm.
Like many failed comedies, the result might have worked as a sketch - or series of sketches -, but not as a coherent stroy lasting over two hours.
Actually, "Don Quixote" does not really work even in short doses. It takes about 45 minutes to see the first moments hinting at the creative chaos Gilliam has aimed at, but the content is never inspired enough to lift the veil of dullness and detachment which covers everything as a shroud.
Whoever's interested in this is probably better off just reading about the making of it, which is said to be one of the most cursed film projects in history.
By the way, Gilliam's old "Monty Python"-era colleague and co-fighter Terry Jones' latest is almost equally terrible and unfunny.
But compared to current fiasco, 2015's "Absolutely Anything" at least resembles a professionally put together movie.
Terry Gilliam tried to pull this project together for 29 (!) years, and while he succeeded in finally finishing and releasing it, the result sucks so hard that it took me considerable strength to just stay with it for more than 10 minutes.
The "Monty Python" legend - director and one of the two screenwriters of this misfire - has given life to his fair share of interesting movies. But none of them were released during current century, and this is definitely the new all-time low.
The best that can be said about the movie is that it's a sad, sad example of how people sometimes refuse to let go things that are clearly failing.
It is not mediocre or unpolished diamond in search of a better form. The movie just doesn't work, on any level - and to add insult to the injury, it looks and feels cheap and outdated, as if done ages ago and then forgotten until now.
The result is purposeless, obscure, dull, and way too long. And the limp, graceless attempts at humor are too obvious to be funny. I didn't even smile once.
In Gilliam's head, the concept for all this surely must have sounded intriguing. The blending of real life and fantasy, magic and mundane, literature and popculture, drama and comedy - what could go wrong, right? Well, almost everything as evidenced here.
There is no emotion, no proper story - only outlines of it - or fleshed-out characters.
To put it bluntly, "Don Quixote" is filled with cartoonish situations supposed to feel wacky and funny, and people used as pawns to move the scenes along, more decorations than real figures that we could somehow relate to.
We have some interesting actors here - Adam Driver, Stellan Skarsgård, Jonathan Price - but they are not able to compensate for the material's obvious lack of wit and charm.
Like many failed comedies, the result might have worked as a sketch - or series of sketches -, but not as a coherent stroy lasting over two hours.
Actually, "Don Quixote" does not really work even in short doses. It takes about 45 minutes to see the first moments hinting at the creative chaos Gilliam has aimed at, but the content is never inspired enough to lift the veil of dullness and detachment which covers everything as a shroud.
Whoever's interested in this is probably better off just reading about the making of it, which is said to be one of the most cursed film projects in history.
By the way, Gilliam's old "Monty Python"-era colleague and co-fighter Terry Jones' latest is almost equally terrible and unfunny.
But compared to current fiasco, 2015's "Absolutely Anything" at least resembles a professionally put together movie.