Crimes of the Future

Crimes of the Future (2022) is a movie my wife and I saw in theatres last night. The storyline follows a future where surgery and pain is the new sex. In the future they don't feel pain so they push the limits of the human body. They've gone so far in their experiments the human body has begun to evolve in new ways science has never seen and the government wishes to hide from society. Underground observations has become the rage to whiteness surgeries that explore the human body and its evolution. This movie is directed by David Cronenberg (Dead Ringers) and stars Viggo Mortensen (Lord of the Rings), Kristen Stewart (Twilight), Léa Seydoux (Spectre), Scott Speedman (Underworld) and Welket Bungué (Upheavel). The storyline, settings l, cinematography and circumstances of this picture are wildly original, unique and well done. The special effects are first rate with fantastic surgery scenes and gore. The characters are mysterious and unpredictable and there are tremendous plots and subplots in this film. My only complaint is the entire movie feels like it is building up to a worthwhile and tremendous climax that the film never hits; but conceptually, this is brilliant. Overall this is a movie that fails to reach its full potential but is wildly entertaining and an absolutely must see. I would score this a 7.5/10 and strongly recommend it.

65/100 My expectations for the film were completely off. The trailer made me think that the film was going to be one way, but turned out it was the opposite. While it wasn't as I expected it was still a decent film. It was artistic, dark, twisted, and intriguing. The story had an interesting concept. "Surgery is the new sex". With that in my mind now it really opens a new visual to the film. The performance was very well done. It's been awhile since I've seen Viggo Mortensen in a film. He was excellent and I enjoyed his performance. Having only seen Léa Seydoux in "James Bond" previously, I thought she did an excellent job as well opposite Viggo. Continuing with the acting performances, this is perhaps the first film that I enjoyed Kristen Stewart's performance. Just her shyness and dark persona made her likeable. The film does lose a lot interest because it becomes too slow at times and drags on more than it needs to a certain moments. While a slower pace is key to the film it's just too slow. Overall, there is some good intriguing moments to the film that I struggle to convey into words. A twisted art story involving slicing and dicing the body. Honestly, it was worth seeing in theatres, but I would've preferred to see it on a cheap night. Thank you for reading my review. I hope it helps you a little in making a decision. Until next time.... Enjoy the show!

A lot of people are passionately disliking this film and I'm not really sure what they were expecting. Have they forgotten what classic Cronenberg films are actually like? Have they lost the plot in their own skewed fantasy of a David Cronenberg film that's been distorted over years of non-exposure while his ever-emboldening reputation only feeds each delusional individual's twisted perception of his filmography? Cronenberg's fleshy visuals have always been singular, striking, and disturbing - but they've typically been an added bonus to what really makes his films legendary, and that's CONCEPT. Concept is far and away the strength and the entire point of Crimes Of The Future - the primary plot, the philosophies it presents, and all the ideas that branch out around it. Nearly every scene introduces an intriguing idea or philosophy that takes the concept one step further, and as a viewer, if you are able to keep up with it, the extremely forward-thinking ideas generally become more fathomable with every conversation. It's amusing to me that "The Future" is right there in the title, and still it seems that the primary problem people are having is that they cannot look ahead far enough to perceive these ideas as even remotely realistic or relatable in any manner. Well, people felt the same way about VIDEODROME when it came out in 1982, but now it makes a pretty succinct statement that can pretty easily be tied to the horrors of social networking - from the inarguable prediction about "screen names" and beyond. While I'm seeing a lot of people call the dialogue in this "atrocious", I truly found it to be some of the most intellectual and intriguing dialogue I have heard in a while. It honestly feels like you are reading a philosophy book the entire time. Considering how out-there the material is, the entire cast did a really phenomenal job sculpting out bizarre personality types that feel as if they may not exist at all YET, but certainly could in the future. Viggo Mortensen definitely steals the show with such a unique approach to a human character that it feels entirely alien. Lea Seydoux held things down as expertly as she always does, and Lihi Kornowski, Scott Speedman, and Don McKellar made great impressions on me for the first time. While the movie isn't thrilling enough to be considered any form of masterpiece, it fits in very well with Cronenberg's final decade of body horror: the 90's. This makes perfect sense since the movie was originally written in 2002, and put on hold for 20 years. (Noting this, it makes it even more impressive that the plot still feels so ahead of it's time.) This movie feels most like eXisTeNz and Naked Lunch, with hints of Crash and Videodrome. But, if you loved Dead Ringers, you should be able to get plenty into Crimes Of The Future - it's "slower" than a lot of classic Cronenberg, but all the elements of classic Cronenberg are there. I went in expecting a film that was all aesthetic with no heart, but I was fully proven wrong. Cronenberg is not facing Dario Argento syndrome in the way that I feared he would. David Cronenberg still has the heart and mind of an artist, and it is fully clear through Crimes of the Future. It's challenging, visceral, and feels pretty gross to watch, as it is meant to be. Much of the film feels like a reflection on David's existence as an artist himself, but its primary appeal is as an exploration of bizarre but very possible elements of our own future world. Kudos, Cronie.

"Surgery is the new sex." Caprice (Lea Seydoux) Although I have a less sensual feeling about surgery than Caprice, David Cronenberg in his new Crimes of the Future makes the case for the tyranny of cosmetic and internal organ rehab for the human body. "Body horror" is the name of his game. He is so good at observing the close relationship between technology and the body that this horror * philosophy disturber gets attention and doesn't let go. And sometimes it makes sense. At a science fiction future time, humans are growing synthetic organs and messing around with plastic surgery so that the parallel with the contemporary urge for surgery is unavoidable. The blight of plastic in our environment is brought home when a boy chomps on a plastic basket. The main performance artist, Saul (Vigo Mortenson), has become a rock star of synthetic organs reminiscent of Kafka's troubled Hunger Artist. Garbed sometimes like Death in Bergman's Seventh Seal, Saul publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in performances catering to a jaded humanity. As his assistant and surgeon, Caprice operates on and models his new organs resulting from his "designer cancer." As for the two actually having old-fashioned sex, I'm not so sure but am wary of the future population decline, as the Chinese have experienced. Another female who works for the director's symbolic machine is Timlin (Kristen Stewart), under the employ of The National Organ Registry (ominous title with malevolent bureaucratic properties) and desirous of connecting with Saul's celebrity. Like other citizens, she is seeking sensation as a byproduct of pain deficiency and dull affect. When she unzips his stomach zipper and licks his wounds, echoes of the old oral sex intrude. Enough said of the organ motif, for more organic to Crimes of the Future is the human evolution to dangerous surgery and questionable cosmetics, a world almost devoid of humanity and full of narcissism. While it is a world devoid of pain, it's the interior emotions that seem, like the synthetic organs, vulnerable. The "inner beauty pageant" is the one salutary oddity contrasted with the ugly organ expos. Crimes of the Future is easier to stomach, so to speak, than would be suspected. There's almost a Zen acceptance of the evolution that stands somewhere between The Fly and Crash, highly symbolic and slightly hopeful about humanity's survival, but accepting that crimes are always in our future.