Review of I Am (2011) by Ulises E — 22 Dec 2013

Famed comedic director Tom Shadyac's entry in to documentary filmmaking is an interesting one. With I Am, his scope is big-- a dissection of the world's problems, the mechanisms behind those problems, and the solutions to them. Through interviews with scientists, philosophers, and spiritual leaders, he paints a rather broad canvass that spans from philosophical to metaphysical.

What I felt I Am was weak in was its presentation of talking heads and their insights in to the world's problems. Many obvious things were said, "poverty", "way", "hunger", yet there wasn't much of a dissection in to those specific issues. Saying, for example, that capitalism is exaggerates these problems is politically correct, yet logically unfound. The film contained too many of these large pronouncements, which distracted from what the film did right. It simply stated many things as fact without backing them up--what about, for example, the higher standard of living produced by capitalistic nations in comparison to the more "egalitarian" governments?

The strongest part of I AM was, undoubtedly, the exploration of quantum theory and some of the new revelations that have come to light. The power of consciousness and its relation to reality is immense, and the film did a good job explaining this. Had the film focused more on this, and less on the platitudes, it would have been all the stronger.

Overall, thought-provoking, but uneven.

3/5 Stars.