51
Metascore
36 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 63Rolling StonePeter TraversRolling StonePeter TraversIn telling a tale of love across time, Aronofsky is sometimes guilty of creating arty, pretentious psychobabble. But in visual terms, he's trying to expose his own raw, romantic heart. Folly? Maybe. But a risk worth taking.
- 63ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliThe overall experience fails to satisfy on a basic level. This is one of those films it's easier to be impressed with than it is to like.
- 63Chicago TribuneMichael WilmingtonChicago TribuneMichael WilmingtonIt's possible to admire or respect a movie without enjoying it too much, and that's partly the reaction I had to Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. It's an incredibly ambitious film of sometimes thrilling visual achievement, but it didn't connect fully to my mind and nerves.
- 50New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNew York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinThe movie would be more bearable without the unyielding score by Clint Mansell, which somehow melds the worst of Minimalism, art rock, and New Age music. It's what you'd hear if your massage therapist wanted to induce a stroke.
- 50Los Angeles TimesCarina ChocanoLos Angeles TimesCarina ChocanoBloated and logy, and art-directed within an inch of its life, the movie shovels heaps of phony portent and all-purpose mystical imagery onto a thin and maudlin plot.
- 50The New York TimesA.O. ScottThe New York TimesA.O. ScottThe problem, though, is that its techniques run too far beyond its ideas, which are blurry and banal, rather than mysterious and resonant. The Fountain is something to see, but it is also much less, finally, than meets the eye.
- 40The Hollywood ReporterRay BennettThe Hollywood ReporterRay BennettJackman does everything required of him, and his range is quite admirable, while Weisz, who has nothing to prove, does looking gorgeous very nicely.
- 40VarietyVarietySuffered from production fits and starts and reportedly has been cut down from a longer running time to a still tedious and repetitious hour and a half.
- 40Village VoiceJ. HobermanVillage VoiceJ. HobermanSolemn, flashy, and flabbergasting, The Fountain--adapted by Darren Aronofsky from his own graphic novel--should really be called The Shpritz. The premise is lachrymose, the sets are clammy, and the metaphysics all wet.
- 30Chicago ReaderChicago ReaderA pretentious, unfocused, and fussy mess, in which director Darren Aronofsky manages to make Hugh Jackman unattractive and unsympathetic… Even fans of Aronofsky's incoherent, flashy “Pi” and somewhat more coherent, flashy “Requiem for a Dream” will be scratching their heads.