Eric Hardman

I actually really, really liked this, and while it's not hard to see why people don't, there are quite a few nuggets here that I found myself pondering that even the positive reviews don't seem to bring up. Beyond the banalities of victimhood and trauma competitiveness, I found its consistent commentary on loyalty to be pretty singular. Who do we remain loyal to beyond our convenience and self-interest? How long can we choose to ignore these often negative decisions until our souls literally disintegrate from the inside out? Michael Stuhlbarg's character is one of my favorites of the year, and I found the visual motif involving the wedding rings to be damn near genius. And color me the furthest thing from surprised that the Reznor/Ross score is fucking sensational. The film is certainly overwritten, overstuffed, and overperformative; but then again, so are most of us.

Greta Lee gives her best acting in the film in a moment where Jared Leto is sprinting at her at full speed down an Oceanside dock. Maybe it wasn’t even acting.  Each time a monopolistic media conglomerate spends an amount of money equivalent to a small country’s yearly GDP on a movie with the artistic and intellectual merit of plastic keys jingling in front of a toddler, my heart grows slightly more black. It was reported in the trades this morning that this is probably going to lose Disney upwards of 130 million dollars. My only piece of sadness there is that it isn’t double that amount. And to those whom the concept of forming any sort of complex thought is too much to handle: you are the problem, and yes it is that deep.

With all due respect to the Tron-heads of the world, be so, unabashedly for real. There’s just no way around that once you see through the (really good) action scenes and Daft Punk, these movies are total nothing burgers. I have vivid memories of watching this in 2010 and my family being turned off even then by the de-aged Jeff Bridges. Dated by its sophomore weekend.

Somehow this plays in part like a dollar store Blade Runner despite being theatrically released a mere two weeks after the original Blade Runner.