As its title suggests, Francis Ford Coppola’s first directing job since adapting John Grisham’s The Rainmaker in 1997 is, to put it mildly, an enigma.

It is a transcendental love story steeped in metaphysical mystery; an existential examination of the evolution of language, proffering much speculation on the possibilities of the human condition; a philosophical assessment of the id as a function of time.

And it allows critics to use words like ‘transcendental’, ‘metaphysical’, ‘existential’ and ‘id’ because they don’t want to look stupid while exposing the latest opus from the former genius behind The Godfather and Apocalypse Now for what it is: a bum-numbing load of old cobblers.

Coppola likens his film to an episode of The Twilight Zone, being, at its simplest, the story of an old man who gets a second shot at life after being rejuvenated by a lightning bolt.

But where 'The Zone' was pithy, thought-provoking fun, Coppola drags everyone on a humourless trudge through a jungle of pretension that will have most moviegoers glazing over long before an ending that really isn't worth the wait. It makes sci-fi snoozefest The Fountain look like Futurama.

Tim Roth sums it all up with a marked lack of enthusiasm in the pivotal role of Romanian language expert Dominic Matei. But who wouldn’t be glum after losing the love of his life (Lara, of war drama Downfall), being toasted in a thunderstorm and waking up to find himself the centre of Nazi attention?

It’s 1938 and despite Matei’s physician (Ganz, Downfall’s Hitler) trying to underplay the fact, a 70-year-old man in a 40-year-old body is hot scientific property.

Matei is plunged into a war of intrigue, during which he becomes a master forger, dallies with a sexy spy with swastikas on her suspenders, spends much time deliberating with his own doubles and discovers that he has telekinetic powers.

After brief talks with Matt Damon, spinning newspapers whisk Matei into Fifties Switzerland, where he meets Veronica, a dead ringer for his old fiancée (again played by Lara)… whom he later finds babbling in Sanskrit down a hole in the woods.

What luck - his true love and the key to his life’s work wrapped in one delirious package! To India then, for enlightenment, crashing waves and many sweat-soaked nights of speaking in ancient tongues.

Coppola adds to the bafflement by tilting his camera every which way while lurching through a mish-mash of styles encompassing gothic horror, 40s film noir, Merchant-Ivory and David Lynch. It all results in a high-minded oddity of very little consequence.

It’s conceivable that a cinematic quest to discover the origins of language and human consciousness might appeal to the very brainy and/or incredibly patient.

But for most of us, life’s too short.

Elliott Noble