Even Christoph Waltz can’t stop Terry Gilliam’s Zero Theorem amounting to nothing

THE ZERO THEOREM: The opening shot — Christoph Waltz sitting at his computer in the nude — emits an instant warning sign this movie won’t be playing the crowd-pleasing card.

YET another misfire from the once-acclaimed, now seemingly cursed British filmmaker Terry Gilliam.

Even those who have somehow kept a respectful flame burning for Gilliam’s skewed artistic visions know the guy’s never going to make another Brazil or Baron Munchausen.

In The Zero Theorem, he performs the disappointing conjuring trick of turning what might have been an interesting exercise in sci-fi into a messy blotch of “sigh ... why?”

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Christoph Waltz plays Qohen, a gifted data analyst traumatised by his work.

The opening shot — a shaven-headed Christoph Waltz sitting at his computer in the nude — emits an instant warning sign this movie won’t be playing the crowd-pleasing card.

Nothing wrong with that. But it only takes a few more scenes to detect that Gilliam is going to throw a lot of creative mud at the wall throughout The Zero Theorem. And not much of it is going to stick.

The film takes place in a warped version of the future where every facet of life has become hopelessly tangled in the workings of the world wide web.

Christoph Waltz as Qohen Leth & Dana Rogoz as Pizza Girl in The Zero Theorem.

Waltz plays Qohen, a gifted data analyst traumatised by his work for a sinister multinational spearheaded by a man known to one and all as Management (Matt Damon).

Convinced he is dying a slow death due to his drone-like existence, Qohen wants out of the information-crunching business.

Instead, Management puts him to work on the dreaded Zero Theorem, a notorious algorithm that could ultimately prove the true meaning (or utter meaningless) of life.

The task becomes the straw that breaks the camel’s back of Qohen’s sanity, and not even the solace he seeks in the virtual-reality clutches of cyber callgirl Bainsley (Melanie Thierry) can lighten the workload threatening to crush him.

As we know from his collaborations with Tarantino, Waltz is an immovably centred and committed actor, and he admirably refuses to shirk the thankless task he has been saddled with here.

However, the conceptual scrappiness of the movie itself heads Waltz off at every pass.

THE ZERO THEOREM (M)

Director: Terry Gilliam (Brazil)

Starring: Christoph Waltz, Matt Damon, Melanie Thierry, Tilda Swinton, David Thewlis

Verdict: Two stars. It all amounts to nothing