No Such Thing (2002)

Fresh and Exciting

Absolutely the worst movie.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Really, the music makes the film. I have always thought grew films have a similar rhythm to music. This is no exception.Not as deep as other Hal Hartley films (Girl From Monday is awesome!) but it has that rhythm.BUT! How does a girl at co-ordinates 48.72W 38.50N end up in a hospital in Iceland? The location is so close to the US or Canada, is MILES away from Iceland, and yet, she ends up there. Weird. And the route, no matter where it would have crashed, would be closer to anywhere else except Iceland. Never understood that.Still Hal puts us to the test with his film style, people and cars criss-crossing at every opportunity, the music. The usual. Hal is a terrific director.After reading jshoaf's review 12 April 2008, I am further enlightened. I stand corrected on Hal's depth.

The worst waste of time and film. A good double feature with Battlefield Earth. This film has no rhyme or reason and you will be very disappointed unless you are heavily sedated. You too will wonder what the heck Helen Mirren was thinking. I know she said in a recent interview she has to do what she needed to survive, but damn. Trust me, the plot has nothing to do with the movie and the movie has nothing to do with the plot. I sat through the entire what ever this is, and kept saying to myself, this is going to get good, it's going to make sense, there has to be something! But, I was greatly mistaken. Right through to the last scene you too will say, did they run out of budget and just shut the whole thing down?

The plot of No Such Thing is the kind that dreams are often made of, it is weird yet it has something in the way of a narrative. Sarah Polley flies to Iceland in search of her missing fiancée only to discover beast dressed in a 17th century outfit, drinking his life away from depression. He wants to die, but he cannot, because he is indescribable. The forces of man's world cannot harm him. Polley, offers to help him by brining him back to civilization. They are searching for a famed doctor who has managed to manipulate the law of physics to create a force that 'may' be strong enough to break this unbreakable monster, but first, the monster has to clean up his act.I have always liked Sarah Polley, I think that was why I was drawn to this film. The idea was intriguing, and the film certainly is, but that does not necisarily make it good. No Such thing has no such idea of what it wants to be. Sometimes it is happy, sometimes sad, sometimes cute and sometimes grim. One thing that is consistent is it's inconstancy.Perhaps the best way to look at No Such Thing would be to call it a twisted take on Beauty and the Beast. Even if watched this approach, it is not so easy to fall in love with the movie. Polley and her large warty co star make a poor screen couple, and they have very little to say to each other. The screenplay is mostly dialogue for the sake of dialogue. The film keeps you going, so I wouldn't call it disappointing, but the climax is way too short and contrived, and it is followed by an almost non existent ending. It the kind that wakes you wanna ask, 'What was this all about?'I would imagine most people who have viewed No Such Thing have asked that very question when it ended. If you wanna join the list be my guest. For better or worse, it is a very weird tale.

This was probably the second worst movie I've ever seen - topped only by "Critical Mass". I actually enjoy independent films a lot but this one is just a very bad attempt at producing something artistic. The story is completely pathetic and does not make any sense - there are approximately one hundred mistakes or inconsistencies in it. They cannot seem to decide whether to make it a comedy or a dark drama. In addition, every single actor in "No Such Thing" could easily be nominated for a "worst actor" Emmy. However, the inferiority of the acting and the movie's senselessness is almost funny. This is actually all I have to say about this movie but Internet Movie Data Base requires me to write at least ten lines. So I do not want to conceal that the monster's costume was pretty poor too, making it look like a green faced human with horns. It is supposed to be a billion year old creature who has witnessed the dawn of creation, one could expect to behave quite wise. Instead, it is acting like my wife's little teenage brother. The woman first comes across very cool and mature, just to turn into some goofy girl later for no apparent reason. She may have been badly influenced by the monster's demeanor.