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The Movie: "What the Bleep Do We Know? turned into a cult film in 2004, playing in theaters for a year, and gaining an audience that, at the time of this review, has boosted the DVD into the top 20 at Amazon.com. The film is essentially a look at quantum physics, which is not exactly a subject that I'd have thought would make for a movie as popular as this one has become. "What the Bleep?" attempts to explain the film's theories about the subject in a fairly basic, straightforward manner, spoken by a series of experts that appear throughout the film. Heavily new agey (just a warning for those out there who have warning signs flash in their head when confronted with this kind of stuff), the film attempts to ask questions about reality: who are we? Why are we here? What do we see that we aren't reacting to? What is reality? All of these are interesting questions and provide a base for a compelling, largely open-ended debate. "What the Bleep?" does occasionally offer an interesting point or theory, but the movie's attempts at discussing its theories seemed to have as much credibility as the "Matrix" movies did in their looks at some of the same questions. For example, we aren't even told anything about the "experts" featured - they aren't even named until the end. There's also some rather oddball theories thrown out - one "expert" notes that a lot of people meditated and, as a result, there was a 25% drop in crime in Washington, D.C. Uh, ok. In order to pad out the running time and make this into something more closely resembling a feature film, we also get something of a "story" in-between the "expert" interviews. It features a depressed photographer (Marlee Matlin) awakening to some new possibilities in the world around her. The acting in these segments is pretty weak, as are some of the special effects employed to illustrate some of the concepts. Without these "story" segments, this is definitely a film that would have went to video or cable. Even so, it still doesn't seem like a theatrical release, and feels long at 90 minutes. I'm all for discussing realities and our place in the world, and despite the fact that "What the Bleep Do We Know?" often seemed hokey and didn't seem terribly credible, I didn't hate it. The film, funded by something called the Ramtha School of Enlightenment (make of that what you will), throws out its own theories - a couple of them here-and-there were interesting, a few seemed bogus and a few just seemed downright odd. I took the film's information with a definite grain of salt, but at least some of it was basically thought-provoking. The DVD VIDEO: "What the Bleep?" is presented by Fox in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. The film's image quality was perfectly acceptable, as sharpness and detail were perfectly fine - not exemplary in any way, but not bad, either. Some of the effects looked soft, but that's likely due to the budget, not the DVD presentation. No major flaws were spotted, just some minor ones: light edge enhancement SOUND: "What the Bleep?" is presented by Fox in Dolby Digital 5.1. Audio was fine, considering the kind of program this is. Surrounds get some light use at times for ambience and other elements, but mostly, audio is rooted in the front speakers. Audio quality was fine, with clear, easily understood dialogue. EXTRAS: Music video, trailer, filmmakers Q & A and interview clips are offered. Final Thoughts: It's hokey, slow in spots and not great filmmaking, but I gave "What the Bleep?" a chance, and some stretches of it were mildly thought-provoking. Fox's DVD offers very good audio/video quality and a few supplements. A rental for those interested in the subject matter. |