Critic Reviews

The scenes of artistic, scientific and communal triumph were significant. The isolated, solipsistic anger of each character, lost in their own identity loop, seemed like a perfect analogy for the conflicts in eastern Europe in the mid-1990s.

It's a stunning experience that leaves the viewer disoriented, maybe even confused, but certainly entertained and somehow hopeful.

Wenders weaves all his thematic and narrative threads together into a coherent, philosophical whole. Even with the apocalypse, though, his view isn't despairing. A new direction, a new beginning emerges out of the ashes of the old, image-overloaded world, and with it, a sort of muted optimism.

Wenders’ weird and wired view of the near future tempts replay as often as the sensational soundtrack (U2, Talking Heads, Patti Smith).

To watch the 158-minute 1991 theatrical cut of Until the End of the World, Wim Wenders’s globetrotting, apocalyptic, pop-rock-saturated sci-fi odyssey, is to zone in and out of a meandering, wistful dream.

The longer it gets, the loopier it gets. [19 Jan 1992, p.13]

What starts out promisingly enough continues considerably beyond the end of the world and wears out even the most determined Wenders fan.

The movie itself, unfortunately, is not as compelling as the tempest that went into its making.

Once the film gets bogged down in the outback, however, it comes to a virtual stop. Wenders seems to be saying something pretty banal about the emotional emptiness of the recorded image as opposed to the "real thing." If that's the point, why make a film at all?

Despite all of the personalized Wenders touches, it ultimately resembles many a top-heavy, star-laden, special-effects-driven production from the major-studio assembly lines.