"O Lucky Man!" clearly has a number of things on its mind, but as a movie, it is a very mixed bag.

Because Mr. Anderson is much more bold and free as a director than [David] Sherwin is inventive as a social satirist, "O Lucky Man!" always promises to be much more stimulating and funny than it ever is. Staying with it through its almost three-hour running time becomes increasingly nerve-racking, like watching superimposed images that never synchronize. The result does not match the ambition of the intention. The wit is too small, too perfunctory, for the grand plan of the film and the quality of the production itself….

The score exhibits real irony about the ghastly indecencies that Sherwin so ponderously tries to ridicule. In this day and age, for those of us who have grown up with the truly epic visions of film makers like Bu...