What the #$*! Do We Know?!

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Tells a light-hearted fictional story and creates a maze of imaginative animation and special effects to illustrate how the heavier thoughts of the science apply to the everyday world.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

As a piece of filmmaking, What the Bleep isn't exactly transcendent stuff. But as an entryway into new ways of thinking about the self, the universe, and the vast infinite whatnot of whatever (you know what we mean, oh wise one), this little movie is big.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Apparently, the faith that can move mountains is detectable in the microscopes that can track electrons. If so, the metaphoric is real and, to me, that thought is as scary as it is thrilling -- but what the bleep do I know?

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

Think of it as "The Matrix" for the quantum physics set.

Chicago Tribune Sid Smith

What the Bleep Do We Know? is both modern science for dummies and a feisty extension of our ongoing religious debate.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Not a conventional documentary about quantum physics. It's more like a collision in the editing room between talking heads, an impenetrable human parable and a hallucinogenic animated cartoon.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

The film is amateurish in places, but fascinating: Bring your eager hypothalamus and your tuned-up frontal lobes with you. They'll get a workout.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

The movie annoyingly waits until the end to reveal the names of those experts who have been doing all the talking; it would have been nice to know these folks' qualifications first.

The New York Times Dave Kehr

Once upon a time this was known as "the power of positive thinking," and it didn't involve nearly so much math.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

There are many tantalizing bits, but the overall result is a simplistic story wrapped in barely explained quantum physics and new-age sound bites. Fascinating and frustrating in about equal measure.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

It's fun, instructive, and stimulating, but never beautiful. Ultimately it's limited by its compulsion to knock our socks off at every turn and to compare itself with "Alice in Wonderland."

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

As entertainment, the movie is a mixed bag. Some of the talking heads become just that after a while.

Variety Robert Koehler

Pic's not-so-hidden agenda is to promote the fusion of science and New Age religion, making it a close cousin to ventures as Bernt and Fritjof Capra's "Mindwalk."

Village Voice Benjamin Strong

Matlin's haphephobic character dry-swallows anti-anxiety pills only in instances of extreme duress, but the actress herself looks pained throughout the movie, wincing reflexively at inappropriate moments.

LA Weekly Margaret Wertheim

In the age of creationism, a sympathetic mix of science and religion sounds like a promising premise. But in this genre-blending cocktail of drama, documentary and computer-graphic animation, quantum physics is so subordinated to the service of an anything-goes mysticism that little remains of the science except the terminology.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Part metaphysical treatise, part educational primer, and part dangerously goofy self-help manual for the New Age set, this bizarre and not unentertaining documentary strives mightily to teach the lay audience everything there is to know about quantum physics in 108 minutes.

Empire Anna Smith

Touches on some interesting philosophical ideas, but it's poorly-produced and unclear in tone.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

"Quantum Bull-Bleep" would be a more apt title for the conclusions that the movie draws, but one concept was a revelation to me. One of the scientists said it's a fact that a single object can be in two places at the same time. I guess that explains O.J.'s alibi.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Why would anyone who wanted his or her film to be taken seriously saddle it with a cutesy title like this?

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Darts around maniacally before congealing around a touchy-feely message of personal empowerment whose secular humanism and moral relativism is bound to strike fundamentalists of all stripes as downright Satanic.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

On the whole, it feels like a cross between a PBS special hosted by a series of low-rent Deepak Chopras and an infomercial for self-help audio tapes.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

The biggest puzzlement about "What'' is what it's doing in major movie theaters around the country when it so clearly belongs on one of those small cable channels given to peculiar programming.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

A terribly self-satisfied lecture about the ubiquity of quantum physics in spiritual life, is dishonest enough to suggest that even its cavalcade of scientists and mystics might not know anything about such topics as reality and the sub-atomic world.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Emits a fishy odor, like a recruitment film for an obscure cult you'd rather stay away from.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The film treats its audience like fidgety junior-high schoolers, piling on the sub-Koyaanisqatsi cityscapes and cheesy episodes with Marlee Matlin as a lonely photographer, plus bouncy cartoons of human cells who look as if they'd be happier chasing stains in bathroom-cleanser commercials.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Nearly two hours of New Age hooey.