The Bad Batch

I went against my instincts when it came to watching 'The Bad Batch'. Every nerve in my body was telling me it would be dreadful, but the words cannibals, Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves and Giovanni Ribisi kept repeating over and over in my head until I finally gave in and made the fateful mistake of watching it. My god, how is it possible to make a story this boring out of cannibals? Every single thing it tries to make itself interesting with completely falls flat. When you manage to get a completely dull and forgettable performance out of Jim Carrey you know you're doing something terribly wrong.

The film tries to be thought-provoking (at least it seemed like that was what it was going for) but none of the concepts it presents are in any way actually worthy of a second thought. It also goes for a lot of style, however it again falls short. In a futuristic desert wasteland setting there a thousand different concepts you could use to create an interesting story. For some reason 'The Bad Batch' chooses a story that could have been told in any setting and in any time period. That's about as lazy as story-telling gets. If you do make the mistake of selecting this one up on Netflix brace yourself for a long and painful couple of hours.

Hoo boy. This movie requires some effort. What starts off as a brutal exploitation flick, surely to weed out the meek, evolves into an absorbing treatise on primal human conditions in a barren, deserted wasteland.

While Ana Lily Amipour's sophomore effort contains pulpy roots, littered with outrageous characters and circumstances, it also tackles some grand topics. Our white trashy heroine Arlen is unceremoniously turfed out of society to fend for herself behind a Texan fence, where lawlessness and depravity are the rule of the day. She is soon captured by a tribe of cannibals, and mayhem ensues.

Dystopian futures as these don't seem all that far fetched any more. "The Bad Batch" may serve as a warning, but chiefly it serves as dusty entertainment. Much like the "Mad Max" franchise, it is a world full of crazies scrambling to survive in glorious sunbaked vistas.

Sporting a primo porn stash, Keannu Reeves pops up as a bizarro, robe clad cult leader. Giovanni Ribisi slips in several rambling, asylum escapee diatribes, but it is an unrecognizable Jim Carrey who absolutely steals the movie as a wizened bag man.

"The Bad Batch" has the art junk, lost inhibition, drug and music orgy feel of Burning Man, and because it's stealthily asking tough questions, has much more going for it than the cheap veneer may indicate.

This is a dystopian movie about a young woman left out in a lawless desert with some real choice characters.

This film starts off very brutally but calms down considerably after the first few scenes.

The characters, acting, production and filming are really good. The story is adequate for needs. The scenery and leading lady are absolutely gorgeous.

So why the low score? The pace of this film is cripplingly slow. There are tedious scenes that should be time lapsed but are run in real time, there is lots of staring and grimacing in silence. You really can go and make yourself a sandwich during this and be safe in the knowledge that you are unlikely to miss anything.

A lot of potential, I really wanted to like this, but it is just so slow I was fighting to stay awake.

I typically like post-apocalyptic movies and TV shows. I don't mind the premise of the movie, but nothing about it grabbed my interest, except that it was so bad (and with its cast) that I figured it had to get good at some point. It didn't. Lack of action and dialogue was bizarre, to say the least. Maybe if they had cut out the little dialogue that there was it could have fallen into a silent movie category and had something. I'm left with a void trying to explain how I feel about it. I suppose that is how I feel about.

I've seen 1 and 2 star reviews, and I've seen 8 or 9 stars. This movie lies somewhere in the middle. There is a ton of talent in this movie, and the story was interesting enough, but there is a ton of wasted potential here. I hope to see this directors next effort as I'm sure the craft will be refined. Overall, it can be a tuff watch, but the performances are outstanding. If you want something original check this out.