Diagonaldi Very well executed

Daninger very weak, unfortunately

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Kirpianuscus It is very easy to write than Gauss and von Humboldt are reduced as fictional sketches, first by novel, than by its adaptation. but the film has two virtues - to be a start point for viewer to discover the life of two great scientists and to admire the spirit of period. the basic sin of film - the bizarre use of humour and the not inspired links between the lead characters. sure, it is fiction. sure, the target is real large . but something, after bitter critics, remains. the passion for a cause. the forms of schizoid perspective about life. and the portrait of a world. not the best, far to be the most inspired. but not so awful.

vkaufmann1 "I am French! I don't read foreigners." Says Emile in response to Alexander Humboldt's musings on Immanuel Kant. Now, who says German movies aren't funny? This one is and I loved it. Directed by Detlev Buck, the film follows two geniuses of the day, geographer/explorer Alexander Humbolt and mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. Adapted from the best-selling novel by Daniel Kehlmann, we are presented with two independent plot strands. Well, maybe not so much plots as let's see how scientists fared in the 18th century - and that is what gives this film the drama: the how they lived. Gauss had his adventures at home, in Germany. Humboldt his in the Amazon region. Great actors, lush locations (filmed in Germany, Austria and Ecuador) naturalistic production design, decent cinematography and relayed with situation comedy. You feel the cold, the dirt, the grime, the dampness, the horror of life in the late 1700s. Don't see it as an attempt to give historical facts but to immerse the viewer in a time we can travel to through the eyes of this movie. I can only repeat: I quite loved it. Well done Buck.

Thom-Peters "Measuring the World" is based on screenwriter Daniel Kehlmann's eponymous bestselling "biographical" novel, a "Big Bang Theory"-like portrayal of two famous scientists as ridiculous, stupid nerds, and an incredibly ignorant, deeply resentful look at Germany around the year 1800, a time that spawned many of the most famous German poets and philosophers. The movie turned out to be not quite as annoying, but that's not saying a lot.It does feature some nice settings, costumes and camera work. Therefore its trailer might fool you into expecting something worthwhile. Contentwise it just shows several scenes from the very different lifes of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) and Carl Friedrich Gauß (1777-1855).Humboldt is an aristocrat, occupied with basic research in the fields of geography and biology. Most of the time we see badly thought out scenes from his travels through the Amazon rainforest. Gauß is a natural born genius. He comes from very humble beginnings and manages to become an internationally renowned mathematician. He's only interested in numbers and women, well, mostly women, because numbers don't look that well on film. One is having dangerous adventures in terrae incognitae, the other one sits and thinks. Yet they are both doing science. Isn't that amazing? No. Like apples and oranges they are just different - so what? As this "Parallel Lives"-thing is the main idea of the novel and the movie, both are fundamentally pointless.Leading man Albrecht Schuch (Humboldt) sometimes doesn't look - and sound! - like a professional actor at all. But the dramatic arts really hit rock bottom when Michael Maertens (Duke) and Max Giermann show up, acting like the worst buffoons ever. It's really hurtful to watch their scenes. This time it's the fault of the director Buck and his low-brow sense of humor. The same applies to the last 20 minutes. Decades later, in 1828, Humboldt and Gauß finally meet, and their thesps deliver an overkill of hammy "old man"-acting, rewarding everyone strong enough to be still watching with an incredible cringe-fest, including urinary incontinence and senile stubbornness bordering sociopathic behavior. Gauß was just 51 years old, Humboldt almost lived to see his 90th birthday, 31 years later. Showing them as frail old crocks in 1828 is just another blatant lie. No, people didn't wither away at the age of 30 as some think, fooled by statistics. Of course, the author makes his Gauß utter some nonsense about statistics, too. It figures.What's the use of a movie like this? It doesn't give us a story, just fake biographical sketches. It is only very loosely based on historical facts. Its author and its director don't even try to understand the protagonists or to develop a sense of the time depicted. They just mock their ancestors and ridicule men once considered as "great", but today nearly forgotten, parading their self-righteous zeitgeisty attitude. That's poor taste, pathetic. A movie for little minds. ("Bad German Movies"-Review No. 13)

Karl Self This is based on a successful novel that contrasts the life of two eminent scientists, of the mathematician and founder of numbers theory, CF Gauss and the adventurer and explorer of South America (and the rest of the world) Alexander von Humboldt. They come from the same locale (Brunswick in Germany) and are about the same age, but Gauss rises from poverty whereas Humboldt is privileged. And whereas Gauss doesn't like to leave his office and rarely travels, Humboldt does practically nothing but to travel.The original novel (which I haven't read) was apparently completely rewritten (by the author himself) for the script. The film is lavish and opulent and bears the characteristic sarcasm of its director, Detlev Buck. The duke of Brunswick, for example, is portrayed as a well- meaning nitwit who can't remotely grasp what young Gauss is on about, whereas Gauss is portrayed as a nerd and an eccentric. The movie is entertaining, but almost a bit too opulent for my taste. As always, I hope that it will inspire its viewers to pick up the biographies.