Review of The Bad Batch (2017) by Sebastian H — 26 Jun 2017
Call me old fashioned, but I like my films to have the three key ingredients - character, desire and conflict. All underlined by a narrative structure. The Bad Batch pretty much falls down on all of the above.
The idea is sound - it is pretty much a parable commenting on the break down of society into splintered factions, and how despite these divisions, they aren't very different at their core, despite all outward appearances.
The problem here, is that is pretty much it. Characters are vacuous, with no development at all, and no arcs or motivations. Given your protagonist no back-story is fine, but then if you don't have them evolve over the course of a film, they remain bland and uninteresting throughout.
This isn't helped by the glacial pacing - 'A Woman Walks Home Alone at Night' was slow, but that felt like punk-rock compared to this. Speaking of bland and slow - Keanu Reeves is in this flick and is terrible.
...and that is coming from someone who generally likes him. To it's credit it looks utterly gorgeous (all over-saturated colours and natural lighting), and the soundtrack is damn good too. Amirpour is a talent, but this just feels like a collection of arty scenes featuring pretty looking people, rather than a coherent movie actually telling a story.
Disappointed.
This review of The Bad Batch (2017) was written by Sebastian H on 26 June 2017.
The Bad Batch has generally received mixed reviews.
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