The Bad Batch-1080P

The Bad Batch-1080P

This is my first, and possibly only, review on IMDB. Felt I needed to come out in defense of this film which I regrettably put off watching for so long. There was initially two things that put me off after I'd seen A Girl Walks Home and wanted more Ana Lily Amirpour: cannibals and Jason Momoa's eyebrows (seriously, those things are straight out of a comic book). Anyway if you can get past a little gore and the f'd up concept of cannibalism this film is a worthy, bigger budget follow up to AGWHAAN. Suki Waterhouse creates an icon with the role, Keanu's character will come at you like a curveball, and everyone else is diggable yet understated. I love Amirpour's pacing and the breath she allows into films. To sum up, you get some dystopian sci-fi, a little horror, and a really good movie about compassion and heart. Watch this film, and keep The Dream alive!

No exaggeration 90% of this movie is people walking in silence, staring in silence or sitting in silence. It's excruciating. It's grind house trying to be "arty" and failing at both in the process.

Excellent sound track to this mostly non violent dystopian tale of a girl out of place amongst the out of place. Fans of the genre who enjoy a break from standard box office type fair should enjoy this film, thou it may disappoint some. Defiantly a movie you must see for yourself to decide. Avoid if you expect an action packed blood thirsty movie. With almost a touch of misanthropy Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) navigates her way around a sparsely populated desert type area after an unfortunate event. We are not quite sure if she wants love or revenge. Keep your eyes peeled for Jim Carrey if you can recognize him.

If I was asked to describe The Bad Batch in a classic Hollywood motto, I'd have to go with "Mad Max meets Jim Jarmusch". I only began watching because I am a fan of Jason Momoa, but after the ten minute mark, I knew this film was going to be good. First off all, this is not for people who want constant action and a fast plot. The film progresses slowly but surely; there are scenes that do not contribute to the main plot, and characters whose developments are left incomplete. Moreover, Both the directing style of Amirpour and the plot suggests spontaneity. Therefore the whole film may be described as "a post-apocalyptic ramble". The remarkable cast is led by the amazing future star Suki Waterhouse, Jason Momoa, Giovanni Ribisi, Keanu Reeves and an uncredited Jim Carrey as "The Hermit". The leading cast's portayal of their rambling characters blends perfectly with the spontaneous plot of the film. Lastly, the soundtrack of the film is one of the most beautiful I encountered in a long while. Great work.

Jim Carrey is uncredited. I wondered why. Then I watched the movie. Thing is, I watched the first 20 minutes, then put it aside, thinking that my wife's sister's family, who are fans of edgy cinema and were soon to visit us, would be down for an aprés apocalypse mindfock like this. They, like me, enjoyed the first 20 minutes. Hardly any dialogue (in a good way), some nice directorial flourishes, a more than adequate set up. Lots of promise. A good skeleton on which to put some meat. A young woman is banished to a lawless territory in the desert, is kidnapped by what turns out to be a community of iron-pumping cannibals, has an arm and a leg amputated (and her wounds cauterized, presumably so that the rest of her can also be eaten or, you know, otherwise put to use), then manages to free herself and find her way to a place called Comfort where the people eat noodles and chicken instead. I assumed what would follow would be a story of revenge and rescue, the goodies of Comfort taking down the baddies at the Venice Beach barbecue, maybe with some explanation as to how the people of Comfort get access to gasoline, photocopiers, rice noodles and all the recreational pharma you could hope for. (My guess was that there would be some connection to a group outside the lawless land, perhaps some sort of probably not-so-kosher arrangement between Keanu Reeves's Jim Jones knockoff and his inworld suppliers.) No answers came. None. Despite a severe underbite, Jim Carrey managed to chew what little scenery there was and he was still the best thing in the film by a long walk. The moment he hands Momoa a snowglobe was when I knew I wasn't coming back. The movie had left me in my own offworld without a clue where I was going or what would happen to me when I got there. Loooong story short, the girl falls in love with Momoa's Atkins aficionado after eating some Guatemalan insanity peppers and tripping out like she ate a bad oatmeal cookie at a Grateful Dead concert. There's some other stuff. A kid who likes spaghetti elbows more than actual elbows and who cries when her Daddy and her new stepmom eat her pet rabbit; a homeless philosopher dude played by Ribisi, channeling an amalgam of all those fidgety weirdos that Brad Pitt used to play; and almost no dialogue not spoken by Reeves, whose explanation of where his dookie go goes on for about nine minutes. But it is bad enough to be a fun watch with friends who like movies made without scripts by people who can't make a movie without a script. Which is most people. Seriously, I want to know the backstory to this debacle. My guess: Super-talented young director makes great movie, gets noticed, then gets one of those bags with the two dollar signs on it and access to Harvey Weinstein's rolodex while he's in the bath. But the movie has to be made in 10 days because Jim has a showing of his larger canvases at a gallery where people will hand him bags with two dollar signs on them because he's Jim Carrey, not because he's actually a talented sculptor and painter. Or Jim shook the snowglobe and handed it to the director, saying (with only his eyes), "Before the snow has settled within, the script must be written."

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.

My title may seem confusing so let me explain it: if you are a person who sees the glass as half empty, then you will see this movie as weak, escapist, cannaibilism movie with a tweak of revenge. If, on the other hand, you see your glass as half-full, you will see a deeply complex political parable about the world we live in today even tho' this is set in a dystopian future. So think a few minutes before you dive in and certainly before you post your comments. I have thought about this film for some time and decided that I had to share this point of view for you. I like dystopian feature films so that was the first reason I jumped in. I do NOT like cannibal films and when Suki Waterhouse lost her arm and leg, I was ready to bail. Later, when Jason Moma was dressing a person he had killed in preparation for grilling, I was soooo soooo close to simply shutting dow this show. Then it hits me that Jim Carry is the Hermit; then Suki Waterhouse has a look which encouraged me to keep watching as she takes on the daughter of Moma; then there is Moma's character which compells me try a ferret out--is he good or is he bad. As with my last review, "Hold the Dark," I began to see textture and characters and themes which encouraged me to stay and watch and enjoy. Then, of course, there are huge plot holes that drive me crazy: How does Keanu Reeves have this great place in the Waste Land where the "bad batch" are exiled? How do the dreamers have noodles to eat? What is the exchange rate? Where does Waterhouse get the gun she uses? How do the dreamers have access to electricity for the rave scene? I didn't see any explanation for these, as well as others! So I scored this an 8--its theme is well worth suffering through various atrocities and plot holes. The acting of Moma is worth watching. Waterhouse's long look after her action poses real soul searching. The final scene--I'm not going to give anything away--is provocative. Bottom line: answer the questions above--or at leat think about them--then you see what you think you see.

I was excited to see this movie after reading the synopsis a couple of days before the screening. As the title of this summary suggests, there is a lot of walking in this movie. The story starts out semi promising with you wondering what happened to the earth but ends up being the walkiest and least talkiest movie I've ever seen. I know those aren't words but goddammit they get my point across. The main actress is forgettable, Jason Momoa, Jim Carrey, and Keanu Reeves were miscast or maybe it was just the bad script? Possibly both? Back to the walking part, with minimal dialogue and no action whatsoever, this movie becomes a student film really quick. What I mean is that they don't cut out all the walking around and other useless scenes that should have obviously been taken out. There isn't really a story, it's sort of tried to take elements from Mad Max and other post apocalyptic films that are much better than it and hope the audience notices and doesn't care or doesn't notice at all. My suggestion: don't see it unless you want to be bored to death. Seen at TIFF 2016.