Voyage of Time: Life's Journey (2016) Reviews

• The Breathtaking Genesis Sequence From 'The Tree Of Life' Stretched To 90 Insufferable Minutes

  CinemaClown2017-09-17

  The entire genesis sequence dealing with the origins of the universe and inception of life on Earth was my favourite thing about The Tree of Life. So when it was later announced that director Terrence Malick plans to make a documentary that would examine the birth & death of the known universe, it instantly earned a spot amongst my most awaited films of the year. A long time coming, Voyage of Time has been Malick's pet project for well over 40 years, and finally made its way into cinemas in two editions; one being a 40-minute IMAX documentary narrated by Brad Pitt, other being a 90-minute version narrated by Cate Blanchett. This is the review of the latter, and although one would expect more to be better, it's certainly not the case here. Voyage of Time: Life's Journey celebrates all that exists. Spanning from the birth of the universe to its eventual collapse, it is an exploration into our planetary past, all that Earth has endured over the course of billions of years, including the dawn of life and how evolution has led us to this particular moment to a preview of what awaits in the future, all accompanied by Blanchett's insipid narration. Written & directed by Terrence Malick, I'm hoping the IMAX version is devoid of all the things that made this 90-minute edition a chore to sit through. Sure it looks beautiful and Malick's sweeping cinematic eye has no comparison but those low-grade DV footage interspersed within its beautiful & breathtaking IMAX photography plus Blanchett's bland philosophical ramblings totally ruins it. In The Tree of Life, the whole creation sequence exhibited a perfect marriage between its visual & aural elements, had a calm & soothing effect on the emotions, and it was visually arresting to say the least. Here, everything is all over the place. The music fails to complement its fleeting images, anytime things seem to be getting a little better, Blanchett would utter something, and it could've done without some segments. On an overall scale, Voyage of Time: Life's Journey is jam-packed with jaw-dropping photography but no amount of spellbinding images can make up for what this documentary lacks in content. It never feels immersive, it never feels meditative, it never feels informative, and it even manages to make Cate Blanchett's voice annoying after a while. It is no doubt an ambitious undertaking and something great could have been accomplished here but in the end, Malick's dream project is as forgettable as it is banal.

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• A pretentious pseudo-philosophical film

  Gordon-112017-09-19

  This film is a collage of scenes from astronomy, physical geography, marine biology and anthropology. I've watched many Terence Malick's recent films, so I know what to expect. It certainly does contain many visually beautiful scenes, that I would marvel at when I watch the National Geographic or the Discovery Channel. However, I'm not watching these channels. The narration tries to make the film sound deep and profound, but ultimately it isn't. It's a pretentious pseudo-philosophical film.

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• Acclaimed director Terrence Malick brings to light consciousness and what it means to be a human being in the present moment.

  HollywoodGlee2016-10-06

  Viewed by Larry Gleeson during the 73rd Venice International Film Festival at the Sala Darsena Theater. Acclaimed director Terrence Malick (Tree of Life, The Thin Red Line, Badlands) is bringing to light consciousness of the universe and what it means to be a human being in the present moment in his latest production, Voyage of Time: Life's Journey, produced by Dede Gardner, Nicolas Gonda, Sarah Green, Bill Pohlad, Sophokles Tasioulis, Brad Pitt and Grant Hill. Paul Atkins served as the Cinematographer while Dan Glass handled special effects. Keith Fraase and Rahman Ali provided editing. Cate Blanchett narrated this version. Director Malick reached out to a Harvard Professor of Natural History and the author of Life On a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years and Biology: How LIfe Works, Andrew Knoll, and said he wanted to make a picture about natural history and the cosmos grounded in science. Malick had long been an admirer of natural history films drawing inspiration from earlier films such as Cheese Mites, a 1903 landmark film by British cinema pioneer Charles Urban and zoologist Francis Martin Duncan, depicting the microbial world inside a piece of Stilton cheese, and George Melies' 1902 Le Voyage Dans La Lune. Knoll had seen Malick's recent film at the time, Badlands. Having enjoyed the film, Knoll agreed to be a part of it. Little did he know of Malick's appetite to thoroughly investigate and devour subjects and correlating theories. An ambitious project in the making for over two decades, Voyage runs the gamut of time from the first cells splitting and foraging their way in and through their vacuous environment to the land of the dinosaurs and Tyrannus Rex to the dawn of man up to today and into the future with sweeping visuals and spectacular effects sure to encapsulate and stimulate the mind's imagination of time and place. The result is a journey uncovering what shape and form time has given and what shape and form that time has taken. From the early Primordial III stars that ushered the first sparkles of light to the universe and the Tiktaalik fish that came out of the oceans to walk on land. Special Effects Supervisor Dan Glass provided wide-ranging special effects from an Austin, Texas photographic laboratory called Skunkworks, a techie and industry term connoting radical innovation in research and development in conjunction with a variety of scientists and artists who collaborated to give representation to abstract images. While chemical experiments were conducted, a myriad of liquids, solids, and gasses were filmed at high speeds to generate a spectrum of effects as the team produced an array of stunning images. In addition, sublime photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA's interplanetary space probes, the Solar Dynamic Observatory - a satellite observing the sun, as well as adapted supercomputer simulations and electron-microscopy are added to the production's visual cornucopia of images. Long time cinematographer Paul Atkins was charged with assembling a series of forest and desertscapes as well as seascapes to provide backdrop for the computer generated imagery of long-lost species. To provide contrast and to remind viewers of the ebb and flow of existence - and its future- , contemporary images of humankind were collected from lo-fi Harinezumi cameras Malick handed out to people across the globe that produced warm and fuzzy, colorful images. Sound designer Joel Dougherty created and meshed in natural and speculative sounds of the universe. Meanwhile, Music Supervisor Lauren Mikus working closely with Malick selected instrumental pieces to evoke the swirling, swelling and creative energy at both ends of the magnitude scale. To watch Voyage of Time is a journey unto itself. Malick tells his story in a non-linear fashion allowing the viewer to create meaning from what's being shown and from what's being seen. The film opens with an establishing shot of clouds and blue skies. The shot is juxtaposed with a cut to a dystopian futurist refugee camp with fires burning. Then, a jump is made to what appears to be plasma. Cate Blanchett's voice-over begins with a soothing quality as she vocalizes, "Light giver. Light bringer. Who are you?" Blanchett continues with some pretty heady questioning throughout the rest of the film's narrative: "What brought me here? Where are you leading me? Who am I to you? Will we always be together? Where are you? Mother, does your goodness never fail? Will you abandon me? Did love make me?" If you like stunning visuals and mind-boggling questions, I would hallucinate that this is a film for you. Recommended. Voyage of Time will be released in two differing formats. One a 90-minute poetic foray full of open questions narrated by Cate Blanchett and the second a 45-minute giant screen adventure for all ages narrated by Brad Pitt.

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• The truth

  jenschristianberg2017-09-16

  This IS the BEST documentary I have seen in my entire life. One who seeks the truth, will know its true meaning. Thank you to all who made this documentary possible, I feel like the luckiest person alive right now to have witnessed it. It is simply the truth. I will watch it many many times more.

• Well. At least it's beautiful?

  annasthasya32017-07-17

  This movie is very beautiful. Truly, magnificent images and colors. But oh, so boring. It took me half of the movie to catch what it was about, since I barely glanced at the summary beforehand. I love nature documentaries, so I decided to go watch it without really looking it up. I mean, you should be able to understand a movie without having read a 1000 words summary beforehand, no? Anyway. Very beautiful, but. Implied philosophic ideas, which feels a bit cowardly since nothing is actually said, Cate B. says maybe 50 disjointed words during the movie with very little interest, we might as well have no narrator, it would have had the same effect. There are many time jump back and forth with zero warning. I loved watching the space and ocean pictures, it was magnificent. (I could have done without the insects, lol) Some animals are seriously freaky, wow. One of my biggest problem is that since there's not really a narrator, you're show many beautiful places and animals... but you have zero context, you don't know where, you don't know what. I feel like I should have stayed at home. The most beautiful parts were the space images, which I already have since my computer's backgrounds are Hubble photos from the NASA, and there are a lot of nature docs on the net which would have fulfilled my ocean needs. I liked the parallels between nature is beauty/don't mess it up/people should care for each other and nature, but I was so bored halfway through that I ended up barely paying attention. I was writing this review in my mind...

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