Immortality and imagination are no cure to the most bizarre (and confusing) RM10 a movie-goer will ever spend.

By PAULINE WONG

Four friends took an adventure into the mind of Dr Parnassus last week, and one of them left the cinema freezing cold and utterly baffled by the movie. She couldn't decide how she felt towards the movie, which she had eagerly anticipated due to the hype surrounding it. (Death of main actor and the three heavyweight actors that stepped in)

She thought briefly about reading a review about it on Rotten Tomatoes. She wondered if she should broach a discussion on it but two of four friends were silent on it. Possibly they didn't like it much.

Tentatively, she asked the fourth friend, who is a movie buff and movie lover like her (but with infinitely more memory for trivia), "That was the most bizarre movie I ever saw?"

To which he answered: "No, I've seen worse. At least the movie's message was clear-cut."

At the risk of sounding like a total kiasu, she didn't ask what he thought the message was, preferring instead to nod wisely. She didn't know really.

And she had this sneaky suspicion that the movie wanted to imply: There is a smart-people-only message behind this movie, and haha, you're too stupid to get it.

Of course, it's creepy to continue referring to myself in third person, so I shall say it out loud: I don't get it. I don't. I get many things but this bizarre, confusing, meandering, disjointed movie is not one of the things I get.

For starters, the story is just plain odd: A man, called Dr Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), has a travelling show called 'The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus'. The show urges people to pass through a mirror and into their wildest, deepest dreams and fantasies, in a bid for their souls - souls which are the currency in a losing competition with Mr. Nick, aka the Devil (Tom Waits).

Together with Percy the dwarf (Verne Troyer, aka Mini-Me), Anton the Assistant (Andrew Garfield, not the cat) and the doctor's daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), they travel, tantalise and take ordinary people into an extraordinary imaginarium. But all is not well.

Along comes Tony, (Heath Ledger, in his final role) who is found hung (apparently to death, but not!) under a bridge. He claims amnesia, but something is amiss. His presence only serves to confuse things, for soon, he is fighting with Anton for Valentina's affections and he lures in more 'souls' for Dr Parnassus, who, for all his long, long and immortal life, has made Faustian deals with the Devil.

And when one of these 'deals' come to bite him in the behind and puts Valentina's life in danger, it all erupts in an acid-trip climax of absolute madness.

But there are glaring questions: Who exactly IS Dr Parnassus? What is going on? How does Tony come into all of these? What is his role in the movie? What does this movie even mean? How does going through the mirror even involve human souls? Is it the power of Imagination here?

Bafflement and Bewilderment abound, ladies and gentlemen.

The most accurate way to describe this movie would be a 'beautiful mess'. With visual affects so colourful and beautiful and out-of-this-world, it would be wiser to focus on the prettiness of it all instead of the story, which, of course, is the mess in question.

Impressed though I am with director Terry Gilliam's efforts in seamlessly replacing Ledger with the trio of Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law, I am far less impressed by his story-telling skills. Frankly put, the plot is just meandering, confusing, and pointless. Worse yet, as I mentioned earlier, I feel like there is a deeper meaning to this movie, but if only...! You know what I mean.

This movie, in the end, is saved only by the cast of actors, who all do a marvelous job, and it's ethereal, fantastical visual feasts.  It is not a movie I would recommend, not unless you loved Gilliam's previous movies (Twelve Monkeys, Brazil, Monty Python and the Holy Grail) and just love his mad ways.

For me though, I know I could do without Bafflement and his sidekick, Bewilderment, taking up permanent residence in my brain.

2 stars