The Bad Batch

After watching this film for the first time, I decided to wait a while before saying anything about it. After two months, I watched it again and decided that this was well worth a second view.

The story is pretty typical for the genre of undesirables exiled to a wasteland. Yes, some felt compelled to resort to cannibalism as the easier strategy. And yet, there's a haven of sorts, if one is willing to find it.

The lead character, played by Suki Waterhouse, does an admirable job - but Jim Carrey is the real surprise - dramatically entertaining in a completely unexpected role. Even Keanu Reeves' portrayal of a dubious but benevolent "desert sultan", replete with breeding harem. is spot on. An agreeable fellow who is just too smooth to be truly likable. Jason Momoa's character remains an unpredictable cut-throat who may or may not turn out to be one of the most depraved amongst these outcasts.

I would be tempted to rate the film higher if the story had been a little more imaginative. Kudos to the director for coping with the harsh environment - and the in-camera special effects that largely took care of the scenes that required them. I'll be happy to upgrade my rating in future, if I find that the film continues to grow on me.

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.

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.

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!

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.