An awful,
pretentious piece of crap. When watching this
film one cannot understand how it ever got made. About the only thing the
movie has going for it is the beautiful
rotoscoped animation (which isn't exactly a new technique). If you wish to watch
talking head after talking head going through elementary philosophical concepts in a
watered-down manner, this is the movie for you. I would liken it to sitting in at a
coffee shop listening to
Philosophy 100 students discussing their
profound musings on life.
Really, it is that bad. Usually I enjoy movies that are
offbeat or have a different way of telling the story. For example, I recently saw
Mulholland Drive and loved it. But in Waking Life there simply is not a story at all. The entire movie is just
babbling from people completely
detached from reality. I felt like screaming at the screen every time another one of the talking heads made a
sweeping generalization. I was also offended that
Philip K. Dick was brought up in the movie's endless
name-dropping. Dick is probably
turning in his grave. His books, as this film, were often concerned with the nature of reality. But Dick was also a good
storyteller. Even elementary school children know you're supposed to "show, not tell". In this movie, all we get is tell.
As previously mentioned, the only saving grace of Waking Life is the animation. It's as if the director knew the movie was awful so he had it done in rotoscoped animation as a
Trojan horse. At times it's slightly amusing, when the things that the characters say show up in the animation. It doesn't happen nearly enough though, and the images are often way too literal. It's just a little chuckle here and there to keep you in the theater, thinking "
maybe it'll get better".
My advice would be to stay away from this
piece of tripe. Truly,
the emperor wears no clothes.