QUANTUM Project, released on 5 May 2000, may be the first feature made for digital distribution over the web, but that doesn't mean that we should look at it differently from any other film does it? Probably not, especially since we are paying for the privilege of downloading the massive file to our desktops to play. It's only entertainment isn't it?

Ah, but it is a small slice of internet history, I hear a contrary voice saying, and a slap in the face for all those that scoff at the idea of using the web as a distribution tool for film. Also, unlike most films, you watch it on your PC.

Certainly, you have to take your hat off to SightSound.com, the company providing the technology for the encoding and online distribution, and Metafilmics who made the $3 million half-hour feature. It's a first and that counts for a lot on the web.

The jury is still out on whether The Project has been a commercial and technical success. You can argue that the supposedly hacker-proof technology hasn't really been tested because the film isn't worth pirating.

The real test should be later this year when Miramax will be offering (in the US only) twelve of its films for download with Sightsound.com. Whether hits like Shakespeare In Love and The English Patient are among those twelve has yet to be made known.

So how do you go about watching Quantum Project? First you have to get the film, and that is not always easy. Even the lower quality, and therefore lighter file weighs in at 85MB and costs $3.95 to download. The higher resolution file is 166MB and costs $ 5.95. You'll either need a very fast connection, or a lot of patience. I had the former, but not much of the latter.

Forty minutes later, the 85MB version was downloaded and unzipped, the credit card details despatched, I sat back and let the show begin. Oh yes, I also had to upgrade my Windows Media Player (the only platform supported), which added another ten minutes to the viewing experience.

So it's a love story - of a sort - between a quantum physicist and a painter (Fay Masterson). The point of view is that of Paul (Stephen Dorff) who works 200 feet under the ground in an Alpine particle accelerator. "I smash atoms and shift through the debris. What am I looking for? Answers," he tells us.

His job is a games player's fantasy ("...the greatest job this side of the space-time continuum"). The boffins in white coats with funny accents, talk as if this huge, multi-million dollar machine, so large it spans the Franco-Swiss border, is the mother of all video games. Paul even controls the light and noise extravaganza with his mouse.

But what's actually happening isn't always easy to tell. To use the vernacular of the film, the normal rules of space and time don't really apply. The storyline builds laterally rather than linearly. In the course of one of his experiments Paul sets off - inside his head it seems - on a journey of discovery about the nature of love, life and, yes, the universe.

I watched it twice and was still confused and unsatisfied. The story is messy and weighed down by its attempts at meaningfulness. It tries too hard to make connections between the laws of quantum physics and mathematics, particles and people, and just ends up being naff.

A scene is borrowed from the English patient where the two lovers are suspended on ropes under a large cistine-style fresco. John Cleese, who featured heavily in the publicity, is rolled on in a cameo as the young physicist's father, but doesn't really have a lot to do with the story. It's almost as if the scriptwriters were told they had to find a part for him any which they could.

Technically speaking, although the image could be a little less dark, sound and picture are reasonably good at low res to appreciate the story. The choppy cuts, heavy use of CGI and various car crashes (more smashing proton parallels) add a certain pizzazz to the production. But the storyline disappears into the ether. If the distributors continue offering this kind of mediocre fare for download, the audience is likely to evaporate as well.