Review: What the Bleep!? Down the Rabbit Hole

By its very existence, the film proves false its contention that focused human thought can manifest both internal and external change.

What the Bleep!? Down the Rabbit Hole
Photo: Samuel Goldwyn Films

By its very existence, What the Bleep!? Down the Rabbit Hole proves false its contention that focused human thought can manifest both internal and external change, as ever since 2004’s What the Bleep Do We Know!?, I’ve been actively desiring an end to William Arntz, Betsy Chasse, and Mark Vicente’s cinema-as-cult-recruitment agenda. A two-and-a-half hour director’s cut of the original documentary/dramatization crossbreed, Down the Rabbit Hole features familiar and fresh interviews with an expanded roster of scientists, philosophers, and quacks—including everyone’s favorite 35,000-year-old warrior spirit Ramtha, channeled by guru Judy “JZ” Knight—as well as supplementary CG segments designed to explain how the field of quantum physics offers humanity the chance to embrace “a new spiritual milieu.” However, aside from the butchery of its Marlee Matlin-starring narrative (which now appears in disconnected bits and pieces, and thus makes next to no sense), this attempt to cash in on its predecessor’s modest success is simply more of the same, offering up a steady stream of “experts” (left unidentified until the closing credits) who expound on the universe’s “unfathomable energies and untold mysteries,” a theory of “entanglement” which posits that all physical matter (down to the sub-atomic level) is intrinsically linked, and the opinion that “we know nothing about reality.” While the latter claim is, ahem, open to debate, there’s no denying the difficulty involved in disentangling the film’s facts from its fiction, as it periodically addresses intriguing quantum physics conundrums about probability and potentiality before spiraling off into New Age-y mumbo jumbo about mind-cleansing procedures, psychic powers, and time travel (“Sex is an invention to let us see into the future,” says one pontificator). But distinctions between truth and fantasy are ultimately rather trivial, as what’s abundantly clear about both specious What the BLEEP editions is their inherent function as bleeping insufferable infomercials for an intelligent design-ish faith that blends science and mysticism.

Score: 
 Cast: Marlee Matlin, Elaine Hendrix, Barry Newman, Armin Shimerman, Robert Bailey Jr., John Ross Bowie, David Albert, Amit Goswami, John Hagelin, Fred Alan Wolf, Dean Radin, Ramtha  Director: William Arntz, Betsy Chasse, Mark Vicente  Screenwriter: William Arntz, Betsy Chasse, Matthew Hoffman  Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films  Running Time: 150 min  Rating: PG-13  Year: 2006  Buy: Video

Nick Schager

Nick Schager is the entertainment critic for The Daily Beast. His work has also appeared in Variety, Esquire, The Village Voice, and other publications.

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