What the #$*! Do We (K)now!? (2004)

One of my all time favorites.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This film presents an idea of quantum theory which bears absolutely no resemblance to anything any physicist would recognise, and certainly nothing of which they would approve on a scientific level. Instead it tries to present spiritual ideas with an attempt to link them to physics so that the general public believes the spiritual ideas have more validity than they might otherwise. This is a common and unsettling trend in some of the more "fringe" areas of spiritual thought such as espoused by Deepak Chopra.As an example, let me cite probably the most well known and possibly most blatant example from the film. A European sailing ship comes over the horizon towards Carribbean natives who have never seen a ship of this type before. Because they have never seen a ship like this before they aren't able to see this one. The film tries to link this to the quantum mechanics effect of Observer Effect - that the act of observing a sub-atomic object alters some property of that object. There is nothing mystical about this effect. It is simply that too observe a proton - visually for example - a photon of light would have to bounce off the proton and then to your eyes. The issue is the proton and photon are very similar in size and the photon is moving at the speed of light, so when the photon hit the proton it sends the proton bouncing off to some other place. It is just like hitting a billiard ball with another billiard ball.The problem is the film tries to make this seem like some sort of mystical or spiritual concept and that it has relevance to the human sized world, and thus tries to co-opt science into seemingly supporting faith-based ideas when that is completely untrue. So the act of the islanders observing the ship and being unable to see it is somehow supposed to be the same sort of thing. Beyond the attempt to conflate science and spirituality, a brief moment of critical thinking would make it apparent such concepts don't apply to the real world. In the ship example, if we were unable to observe things we have never seen before we would essentially be unable to see most, if not all, of the world. Everyone sees everything for the first time once.The problem I therefore have with the film isn't the acting, direction or cinematography. It is the ideas. It is bad enough to espouse concepts that have no actual meaning in the world most of us live. What is far worse is that the creators don't have enough conviction of their own message to let it stand on its own. The attempt to hijack scientific concepts unfamiliar to the average lay person so as to shore up their message is deplorable.

While some special effects are well-done, even creative, others are cheesy and distracting – and repetitive. The "acting" is mediocre – likely due to poor direction, full of flaws. The "story" is even worse – actually a melange of claims attempting to build some kind of theory on an "alternative reality" based on sketchy scientific "facts" (non- accredited and without references) and the authors' own "alternative facts". Intriguing, for the many minutes of never getting to the point – until "scientist" (one has to assume) claim one can create one's own "reality". So, one could walk on water, for example, if one just believe it possible. The problem is that they present it as "truth". They should invested their ideas and efforts in some sci-fi thriller. They could have come out with something entertaining or at least interesting – this was neither.

"What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?" is a documentary from over 10 years ago that runs for almost 2 hours and tries to make an impact with its messages about religion, life and general well-being. However, it all feels very awkward from start to finish and I never felt the message that the movie was trying to deliver us. Well.. actually there is a lot of acting in this film, so you could only call it a documentary to some extent. For example, Oscar winner Marlee Matlin appears here, but the acting wasn't either on a level where I would say that I was impressed. But you cannot really blame the actors as the script was just too weak and also not full enough of memorable content for such a runtime. The ratings here on IMDb and on critics websites are accurate I would say. it is not a complete failure, but also not a good movie by any means. Overall, I give it a thumbs down.

It was not until toward the end that you found out that this is just a long pitch for the Ramtha cult. The movie mixes weak assumptions from quantum physics with New Age thought. Throw in some pseudoscience and magical thinking that you can construct your own reality, you have this garbage. The methodology is to start gently with some true, but very limited and selective statements about quantum physics and neurobiology. These parts are often said by scientists, but then these are mixed together with talks from Ramtha cult representatives in order to draw far-reaching (to not say completely incorrect) conclusions about metaphysics. I can understand that some people caught up in the rhetoric, but this is certainly a film that only spreads ignorance and misinformation.