The Zero Theorem (Terry Gilliam, 2013)

Gilliam goes back to his personal dystopian near-future where all things around the protagonist are grotesquely distorted to satirise modern life in extremis. The estimable Christoph Waltz is somewhat wasted in the midst of the pandemonium as a reclusive computer genius tasked with working out the equation that holds the meaning of life: it's not that there aren't touches of Gilliam's trademark imaginings which just about keep it going, but rather that the question is whether the film deserves to. It's Brazil all over again, even down to stand-ins for all the personae around the appalled little guy caught in the cogs of a giant machine, and as such can only frustrate.

5/10