Mute Reviews

When I heard that Duncan Jones was coming up with a new movie, that it was a passion project he had worked on for maybe a decade, that it was somehow linked to 'Moon', it became instantly one of my highest priorities for 2018. The fact that it would be also available only a few weeks later on Netflix was pretty much the cherry on the cake. Unfortunately, I was amazed by how underwhelming the damned thing turned out to be. Indeed, while 'Moon' was pretty much a flawless minimalistic science-fiction masterpiece, this movie was actually the opposite as it was seriously over ambitious and filled up with some poorly developed characters and a rather half-baked story with too much going on. First of all, even though I really love 'Blade Runner', it was actually  getting on my nerves to see another SF feature copying its visual style and it would be neat if, 30 years later, the current filmmakers would finally bring something new to the table. Eventually, what bothered me the most were all these countless and pointless scenes. I mean, for example, at some point the main character had to go to the library searching for the Berlin yellow pages books so he could find a phone number. Seriously, it is the freaking future, why didn't he look it up on the Internet? Of course, you could argue that it was what an Amish would do but he already used a smartphone and other modern devices during the movie. Finally, it wasn't a strong story but I don't feel like going into details explaining why. Anyway, to conclude, this movie was a major step back for Duncan Jones, I hope the damage done to his career was not too big and that the guy will soon come up with something that really dazzle us this time around.

It made me sad how bad this movie turned out. There were too many variables that needed to work to make this an ok movie, but everything just fell slightly short of being solid, despite good performances by Rudd and Theroux.

The first 20 minutes could have been told in two minutes and I almost gave up, then it got minimally engaging and I half dozed through the rest.
It was interesting to see Berlin dressed up in Blade Runner, but then again not interesting enough to make up for story.

The idea of having the main character be a mute required every other actor to be able to carry scenes, which not many were, especially considering that the bar for acting in sci-fi movies is already low. The writing is not very tight, neither the editing, the vfx are generic and the camera meanders through many scenes that seem to want to capture a futuristic Berlin culture but have no purpose driving the plot forward.
That said it could have been a good movie, maybe similar to Strange Days, if they had approached it like a Fincher thriller instead of a dreamy juvenile romance/revenge story. Oh, and sci-fi, there was no need for sci-fi at all, even considering the last sci-fi-esque surgery and it's consequence - no need. The last half hour had some decent themes and acting, maybe they should have taken that and rewritten the rest. Anyway this review sucks about as much as the movie. Go watch it if you want to learn from its mistakes.