This movie is a triumph of metaphor and art over entertainment and mass appeal. We start with our hero, Hugh Jackman, as a Spanish conquistador who leads his small raiding party against the Mayans where he is attacked by the chief who wields the sword that was used to protect the Tree of Life from Genesis.
Once attacked, he becomes a head-shaven monk who appears to live on virtually no food at the base of the aforementioned Tree of Life. From there, he starts to have flashbacks to his life when he was married to Rachel Weisz. Curiously, this marriage exists in 2006 or so. Confused yet? If you're not, then you probably just didn't care about the characters or what was going on. Congrats, you have joined the rest of us.
The way it tells the story is very much like Cloud Atlas where different timelines are swapped out in an effort to tell a story that is a tapestry of the lives of the people in it. Unfortunately, like that movie, it comes across as over indulgent and a generally confused mess. Unlike that movie, we follow only one guy through the timeline. But the fact that it is the same guy, mixed with the fairly heavy religious and spiritual overtones in each part of the timeline skipping, doesn't actually make us understand what exactly they were going for or why I would want to watch it.
Everyone seems to do a pretty good job of acting, but the dialog is confused and inadequate. The dialog has to try and keep up with the storyline, and the writing of the story was just not good. I wish I could say it was just very highbrow and consequently not for everyone, but it is aspirationally highbrow without achieving its desires.
Speaking of which, the Mayans? Why do the Spanish always think that these religious artifacts that were in the Garden of Eden would be in Central America or North America? It's not like the Mayans are not human, and the point of this, we are told, was to hide the tree from humans. Let's ignore the fact that God does not need to "hide" things from people and just ask why he would only hide it from *some* people.
Directing was good
Acting was good
Art direction ran amok
Writing was an overreach
Dialog was inadequate
1.5/5