User reviews

As we grow more and more tired of dull as dishwater, predictable, structure obsessed nonsense, we come to love films that want to use the medium to take us on a trip. I see nothing wrong with enjoying beautiful imagery, stunning music and a bit of emotional self analysis for a couple of hours. Or would you rather the story by numbers of say, Joy? I may not have loved this as much as Thin Red Line, or Tree of Life, But am I happy to spend two hours with Mr. M? Indeed I am. Anyone who has led anything verging on an interesting life will have plenty to ponder as this washes over them. This was like meditating. It's freeing to let a sense of the story wash over you without having some contrived plot shoved down your throat. I let the cinema invigorated and cleansed.

It takes a while of watching the movie before starting to appreciate it. However, the longer you get, the more it starts growing on you. Its modernistic style is certainly not for everyone - but the combination of beautiful pictures and captivating music as well as the subtle messages of the flick, is in my opinion brilliant. As with many modernistic pieces it requires that you as a spectator participate, which is very giving, that is, if you actually do it. Then you will experience the emptiness we as human beings have to wrestle with: the apathetic nature of just following the flow: the slumber we experience the moment we stop being active and stop shaping our existence. The movie is a reminder not to fall in slumber, but to wake up and see the pearl.

When we go into a Terrence Malick film, we generally know what we're in for: a spiritual journey into Man's soul through unconventional, yet beautiful cinematic means. Malick's films are mostly unscripted and plot less, instead using nature to assist them iin creating a narrative by use of both visceral and symbolic imagery. And like Werner Herzog, there seems to be an almost divine force on their side.

Then there's Knight of Cups: A cinematic farce masquerading as profundity; an excruciating exercise in self indulgent banality. I couldn't believe what was unfolding before me. It was just empty--Lubezki's cinematography, the voice over, the character's-- just empty. A borderline Malick parody. It was almost as if the film was made by a machine, or perhaps some sort of alien being attempting to recreate human emotion. I literally felt nothing while watching it.

The only justifiable reasoning I can fathom on how Malick directed this film, is if he was trying to give the audience a hands on experience of the superficiality and mundanity of the protagonist's life. If this is the case, then I suppose the film is technically a success. If you can call that a success. I'd say the filming of paint drying would be an equally effective treatment of the subject.

Knight of Cups was a very different subject than I was expecting from director Terrence Malick. Few directors delve into the raw emotional content that carries us through our daily narrative. Most of his films approach the viewer from the very abstract to the rather mundane. I was quite impressed with most of his previous work, but I failed to grasp what was going on here.

Christian Bale confirmed in an interview with The Guardian, a few things that people should know before watching this film. Mostly that the director did very little in terms of actual direction and scripting. Every scene in this film was either unscripted or improvised. Actors were playing off each other and had very little to go off of scene by scene.

Bale plays a successful Hollywood Screenwriter, who is haunted by his traumatic past and fails at most of his relationships. Not out of poor decisions but because he seems lost more than anything. The events that lay before him are strange and somewhat unconnected, but the recurring theme of his affairs, love interests, and strange breathy narration (which is fairly typical for Malick's films), make this film somewhat of a repeating loop of the same events over and over again. You're left a bit confused at the end wondering, what was this film about. There are some beautiful shots in it, yet still a difficult movie to follow.

A rather contemporary, if unguided effort on the director's part, and falls somewhat flat next to his more spectacular body of work.

5/10

I don't get why there are still producers willing to waste their money in Malick's crazy projects. I'm sure there are loads of talented people around without Malick's contacts. It's a boring nonsense. Two hours in coma worth more that this (I refuse to call it film)

This...is not a movie. It's a narrated commercial for nothing, or maybe for the cameras they used for filming? The shots are cool, I'll give it that, one point for the cinematography. Nothing happens in this commercial, there's no story arc, no plot, no character development. You will not experience any emotions during this film, unless you are moved by perfume ads in magazines. You will not have any thoughts about this thing either, besides 'why did I finish that?' , if you can survive to the end. Its a tough watch. Lots of pretty girls in it, so if that means anything to you, then I might recommend this.

I don't think they will release this movie in theaters, it won't be worth that type of distribution, because the movie looks expensive and the cast is top notch. I am not a film critic by any means, but I know this is bad. Not funny bad, just painstakingly boring and pointless bad.

Avoid

I won't mislead anyone. This movie is a tough watch if you don't like movie as a form of art and poetry. This movie requires you to be open-minded, philosophically inclined and love good cinematography and music.

Malick once again put me in a hypnotic state of trance while watching this film. He keeps on going against conventional movie making. His style is hypnotic and gorgeous.

What I took away after and while watching this movie is that it is a observational piece on human behavior. It made me realize how crazy the human race is. The way we enjoy entertainment, treat our women and live our lives. It's all a really surreal thing for a species to do.

Apart from the plot, this movie is mesmerizing and extremely relaxing to watch. The soundtrack is trippy and hypnotic as always and Malick is really settling on a certain (like it or hate it) style of filmmaking. It's very personal whether you like his films or not. To me personally his films are wonderful observational pieces of art that should be stored and preserver for future generations to reflect upon.

His films are also really great material to watch when you're high on psychedelics ;)

If you narrate...your movie...using whispers...in short...sentences...it will make it seem...meaningful...

..only it wasn't. From start to finish this film is nothing more than stylised cliché. If you've seen the first 5 minutes then there is absolutely no need to watch the rest, because nothing else happens.

In short the film is as follows: Playful nymphets frolicking around in luxurious spaces, Christian Bale looking like he's had too much lithium, various narrators whispering something about life and some melodramatic improv. acting all filmed with a shaky camera. That's it. No meaning, no message and certainly no depth.

From the style of the film it's safe to say that the director is aiming at depicting a characters search for meaning in a superficial world of carnal desire and material illusion. Unfortunately though, far from creating some kind of Zen reflection, the film itself remains as superficial as the characters it portrays. The direction is a bag of tricks with the same series of shots repeated over and over and the narration is all pseudo-poetic garbage delivered in whispers so it seems deep.

This is all actually very surprising, because this same director also made 'The Tree of Life' which was similar in style to this film but actually had a purpose and urgency to it. In comparison this really does seem suspiciously like a very lazy imitation of his earlier work.

Spiritually this film is about as important as a Levi jeans advert and artistically it's as beautiful as a plastic palm tree. There's literally no reason to watch this film, it's simply the product of Malick's ego masturbation brought to orgasm with the help of some Hollywood A-Listers in the hope everyone would come off looking like celebrity Buddhists. Instead they just look like fakers.

Take my advice, don't waste your time and money on this pretentious nonsense, go and watch The Tree of Life instead.

How can one rate a "movie" like this one? How can you sum up, what is happening? Maybe you can't, maybe some will be able to see through it, maybe some won't. Even "Tree of Life" seems like a "Straight Story" compared to this. And yet still it is intriguing and very well thought of. It is about life, love and how we spend our time on this planet. How and with whom we surround ourselves with.

Interestingly enough there is a lot of nudity in the movie, which I didn't expect. But nothing that is shown or meant to be exciting. It's just shown, because it is. The movie begins with a voice over which sets the tone. It's like someone is narrating our lives (or C. Bales characters life in that case). While boundaries and rules of filmmaking do not seem to matter to Malick (or at least he likes to break them), for the uninitiated viewer this will come as a shock. Something he or she won't be able to enjoy as movie. Because in fact this isn't just a movie. It transcends that boundary for better or worse. Depending on what you make of it ...

Knight of Cups (2015)

** (out of 4)

Terrance Malick's latest comes as a major disappointment as it centers on a screenwriter (Christian Bale) trying to cope with his life, his brothers suicide and trying to make sense of the various women in his life.

KNIGHT OF CUPS got released to mixed reviews and it ended up crashing at the box office, which is really understandable. I'm not going to say I enjoyed this movie because I really didn't but at the same time I can understand why some might see this and call it one of the best films of the year. As with THE TREE OF LIFE, this film is certainly going to leave viewers with mixed reactions but I found that film to be a masterpiece whereas this one is a blurred mess.

I will start off talking about the one great thing and that's the cinematography. This is certainly one of the greatest looking pictures of the year and Emmanuel Lubezki deserves a lot of credit for what he was able to do. The cinematography is so great that it actually upsets you that there wasn't more to the film. There's no question that the look of the movie is something brilliant and it comes across as a beautiful visual trip. It certainly adds an atmosphere to the movie and there's no question that it's the best thing about the picture.

With that said, everything else is pretty much a mess. The determining factor on your reaction to the movie will be your feelings towards the lead character. He's pretty much walking around in a daze of depression, thought or perhaps both. I never cared about the character or his problems so I got rather bored very early on. The majority of the movie has him banging hot ladies and then walking around feeling sad. Now I'm sure fans of the film will read a lot more into it and say I missed the point and perhaps I did. Or perhaps they're making it seem like there are things in the film that aren't really there.

KNIGHT OF CUPS isn't a film that's going to appeal to very many but even Malick fans are going to be divided with it. You've got a terrific cast include Bale, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Brian Dennehy, Frieda Pinto and Antonio Banderas but none of them are really given a chance to act as they're all sucked up by the visual grace that the director was going for.

See Bale contemplate. Contemplate, Bale, contemplate.

See Bale reminisce. Reminisce, Bale, reminisce.

See Malick write. Write, Malick, write.

See Malick direct. Direct, Malick, direct.

See Malick and the producers lure big name actors working for scale. Lure, Malick and the producers, producers, lure. (I almost wrote manure; my bad.)

Terrence Malick knows how to write and direct; after all, he told us so by directing this. Throw _ALL_ your skills at the wall and see what sticks, eh Terry?

This was a concept thrown out by Jerry Seinfeld - a movie about nothing.

It was beautifully shot, so kudos to cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki.

I certainly can't criticize - or praise - the cast, because no acting was involved.

I love the Malick films I've seen... until now. I'm sure this is a stunning piece of cinematic art, but it's not a movie, it's the epitome of self-indulgence. Who exactly is the audience? It's certainly not the ignorant bulk of audience members I alluded to in the review title. There's a very, very small set of cinema fans that will appreciate this, and I seriously think most of them are just posers pretending to be film snobs. (I'm a film snob, but I'm not _THAT_ much of a film snob.)

The investors dumped a whole lot of money into a film - a product, after all - with a limited customer base. Corporate leaders in the real world, ie: not Hollywood, would never let this happen. As of 2016, the film earned about $1.1 million _world-wide_. And like other Malick films, the budget for this wasn't released (or at least I couldn't find it) so we really have no idea how many film investors jumped to their deaths in Hollywood's real-world version of the crash of Wall Street.

My bafflement keeps me in good company - many of Malick's big-name cast members were as clueless about their films as I am about this one.

I tried watching this once before a few years ago and gave up after about 20 minutes, and, like with me and Brussels sprouts, I did my best to force this down my gullet. It almost came back up, and I don't mean the Brussels sprouts.

There are no spoilers in this review because there was no plot to be spoiled. Happy, happy!

Rick (Christian Bale) is a successful movie screenwriter in Hollywood. He goes out with free-spirited Della (Imogen Poots). He goes to a tarot card reading. Barry (Wes Bentley) is his brother and Joseph (Brian Dennehy) is his father. Nancy (Cate Blanchett) is his ex-wife. Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) is another woman from his past. Tonio (Antonio Banderas) is a womanizer. Helen (Freida Pinto) is a model. Karen (Teresa Palmer) is a stripper. Fr. Zeitlinger (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is a priest. Rick moves through L.A., Vegas, and other places as he searches for meaning with various loves and hookers.

The acting is improvisational. The movie moves through L.A. and this world in a dreamlike fashion. Rick doesn't say much. The camera moves through his world like a spirit observing his life. In a way, it's a very fitting vision of LaLaLand. It reminds me of an IMAX movie I saw back in the 80's with disconnected action vignettes in Canada. It was disembodying but fascinating... for about thirty minutes. Luckily, that's how long that IMAX movie was. In this case, this movie lasts for two hours. One does check out sooner or later. I try to stay with it but it does get away from me a couple of times.

The movie is filled with beautiful imagery like any other Terrence Malick film. Malick knows that a visual experience can transmit the emotions, thoughts and ideas of thousand words, and one has to understand that to appreciate his movies. The narrative also holds its ground. It takes you through the existential crisis Christian Bale's character Rick faces. I would suggest you to watch "Tree of Life" & "To the Wonder" first as the three movies form an implicit trilogy and kind of an autobiography. Tree of Life is the magnum opus of Malick and I can't help comparing his any other movie with it. That's why the 6 rating. P.S. The movie is easy on the eye, yet somewhat confusing. A bit like my girlfriend.

I am usually quite tolerant of movies that seem to miss the mark, but this disaster was nothing but a disjointed series of unrelated scenes. It gave me the impression the director just got a new camera and was trying out all of the features on arbitrary meaningless subjects.

It would be very interesting to see how he managed to get some notable actors to participate in this. Maybe they owed someone a favor, I don't know. But what I do know is there is no story of any kind here. Nothing.

At least I did not feel too alone when I asked, "What is this about?", as I am sure the actors, writer and director all asked the same questions when the saw the screening.

Perhaps a more pertinent questions might be: "How did something like this even get made?"

Writer/director Terrence Malick is Terrence Malick and either you relate to his films or avoid them. They are art pieces: not all art appeals to everyone. His films are an expression of a philosophy that the mind constructs all the input the eyes see and the body feels and while it may not make a story that is easy to follow (is there really anything to follow in any of his films?) it provides a unique experience that requires the viewer to relinquish expectations of storytelling and simply sail through the visual magnificence of the images Malick places on the screen and populates with enough characters to offer a hand during the journey he has shared.

Try to piece together a definition of the story and it comes in two levels: 1) 'A 30 year old writer (Rick – Christian Bale) indulging in all that Los Angeles and Las Vegas has to offer undertakes a search for love and self via a series of adventures with six different women.' And 2) A fable – 'Once there was a young prince whose father, the king of the East, sent him down into Egypt to find a pearl. But when the prince arrived, the people poured him a cup. Drinking it, he forgot he was the son of a king, forgot about the pearl and fell into a deep sleep.' The sections of the film are named according to Tarot Cards.

The dialogue is mostly off camera (with notable exceptions) and offers some sensitive philosophical notes that accompany the photography and the essentially classical music score that illuminates the film. The dialogue counts: Joseph (Brian Dennehy) is the main character Rick's father and states 'You think when you reach a certain age things will start making sense, and you find out that you are just as lost as you were before. I suppose that's what damnation is. The pieces of your life never to come together, just splashed out there.' And there are many memorable lines – 'You live in a little fantasy world, don't you?' 'Treat this world as it deserves, there are no principles, just circumstances. Nobody's home.' All those years, living the life of someone I didn't even know.' 'No one cares about reality anymore.'

The cast, even if through very brief appearances, is uniformly excellent – Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Brian Dennehy, Natalie Portman, Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto, Wes Bentley, Imogen Poots, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Cherry Jones, Jason Clarke, and too many others to credit. The magnificent cinematography is by Emmanuel Lubecki and the musical score montage is credited to Hanan Townshend.

Perhaps not a film for everyone, but for those who wish to expand their visual and philosophical horizons, set sail with Knight of Cups.

This film is beautiful, it is poetic and it is bullsht.. it is thoroughly depressing and at times confusing. The only relief to this is when your confusion abades when finally you stop trying to figure out what the Hell is actually going on and on when you simply decide to enjoy the pretty colours and shapes of American architecture and scenery. Because to wonder why the characters (if you can even call them that) are in any place and for what reason to to grasp at straws which aren't even there.

This film is essentially an aggrandising and glorification of the shallow side of human nature in the most unrelentingly pitying fashion. It's two hours worth of very little substance with some very big names, filmed in a very beautiful way. It's like a feature length GQ photo shoot.

That all said, it was very pretty. Just don't expect to come away from it with anything other than a sense of numbness. As I say in my title, it is very much like watching a foreign film without subtitles. You get the gist of what's going on, but there is no detail for which you can attach yourself emotionally. You won't care about any of the characters nor what is going on, if anything was actually going on at all.

Alternative titles for this film may have included "Christian bale gets so bored that he thinks he might possess actual human emotion but it turns out he just took some mescaline with a model" or "rich people get so happy that it eventually makes them sad".

Let's get one thing straight; Terrence Malick's films aren't exactly everyone's cup of tea. They're arguably the most unconventionally crafted movies from a well renowned director out there. Audiences normally criticize him for being highly pretentious and having no meaning in his work. But for some, his films represent everything we love about the artistic medium of motion pictures. With his latest offering, "Knight of Cups", Christian Bale stars as a screenwriter eager to explore his seedy persona in the dreamlike whereabouts of LA.

The film swoons along with a plethora of illusory montages, with Bale being Malick's primary focus as he trudges through the streets of downtown L.A., bizarre nightclubs swarming with vibrant dancers, house parties exclusively for the rich and meditative walks through the desolate wastelands of the Las Vegas desert. For the majority of the film he cuts a forlorn figure, basically looking to find some sort of significance of his life and finding the answer to faith. And in typical Malick fashion, none of what we see on screen is straightforward and we're left to determine our own meaning on the gorgeously composed images. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki once again has a vice like grip on how to bring an ethereal visual lyricism to surroundings.

Malick is one the very few directors who really embraces the beauty of artistic filmmaking. They may not follow a clear cut narrative, but there's no doubting that there's an alluring poetic rhythm that's present in his films. The key is for the viewer to figure out what Malick is attempting to portray. And even if you can't, just go along for the experience. Simply put, if you enjoy his films, you'll most likely find some sort of reward with this.