Have you ever wondered what a Red Hot Chili Peppers music video would look like if it was constantly over-saturated and turned into a feature film? Well, look no further! The Bad Batch aims to please your post-apocalyptic dreams of stories with no purpose and terrible representations of minorities. In a world full of movies about dystopian romances, this film had a lot of potential to be an original and compelling story, but it lacked a lot of the elements that make any film good. Some of these include writing that made sense, characters that are actually developed, and a clear tone or central theme. All of these were lacking in this film, and while I had high hopes, I definitely ended up disappointed.
There are so many aspects about this film that made it into the confusing and blurry mess that it is. The first part would be the writing of this film. While it is typically a good storytelling method to toss the audience into a new world without explanation and let them uncover things for themselves, that simple strategy did not work for this film. It was never revealed whether this film took place after an apocalypse of some kind, or maybe during a government-initiated war on cannibals. The only part that was clear is that there is a group of people who get routinely tossed out into an empty desert to fend for themselves. These people are considered to be the "bad batch," but for what reason? It is also understood that the cannibalistic communities that were at war have to do anything to survive, but the main problem was that all of the characters were so underdeveloped for me to care what happens to any of them. The tone was also quite confusing, because not a single word was spoken for the first twenty minutes of the film, and I thought that was a really original and interesting choice. It was very eerie and had me on edge, until one of the citizens of the first community was blabbering about the end of the world, so I was able to comfortably sit back in my chair and judge away. The setting and tone for this film did not match the other elements, especially the lackluster romance plot between Arlen and Miami Man.
The biggest issue I had throughout the story was concerning the characters and their relationships. Arlen, played by Suki Waterhouse, and Miami Man, played by Jason Momoa, were two of the most contrasted characters whose interactions made no sense. Arlen initially arrived in Miami Man's community, only to kill a few people in order to escape, which cost her an arm and a leg. It literally cost her an arm and a leg, which was the most obvious metaphorical pun they could have possibly used. Arlen ended up taking Miami Man's daughter back to a new community and the story from then on included Momoa's character's attempt to retrieve his daughter. In the ending, Arlen gave him his daughter back, but Miami Man did not appear to be upset at all, and instead the two formed a strange type of romance. I'm not sure who develops a romance with the kidnapper of their only child, but this was a strange one indeed. Waterhouse's character was very generic for a protagonist, but Momoa's character was a bit stereotypical. Miami Man was a Cuban drug dealer from Florida, and instead of writing the part as a native Hawaiian (like he actually is), Momoa attempted a Cuban accent which was offensive and overdone. Why they couldn't have just casted a Cuban actor, who knows? Momoa put more effort into his thirty-second Aquaman cameo in Dawn of Justice (from this same year) than he did trying to make this role work. The other two performances which were peculiar choices indeed were Keanu Reeves as The Dream and Jim Carrey as The Hermit. Reeves' character was very Hugh Hefner-like, and this might be his worst role to date. It was extremely emotionless and there was nothing in the story that supported his character. The best performance in the film, however, would be that of Jim Carrey. Carrey played a strange wanderer who only appeared in a few scenes of the film, sporting a scruffy beard and a skinny, tanned, torso. While Carrey did not utter a single word during the entire thing, he managed to be the best performance throughout, which says a lot.
The Bad Batch is a very strange and perplexing film that I am still trying to figure out if I like or not. On one hand, it's a weird, independent film that takes lots of risks, which I give it credit for. But on the other hand, it is full of bad performances and weird design choices that made no sense for the setting of the film. Yeah, I'm gonna have to give it a "would-not-recommend."
My Rating: ★★½
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