Crimes of the Future is another skin-crawling, body horror movie from 2022 but like many of the others, this one doesn’t deliver.
Crimes of the Future is directed by David Cronenberg and yes, it’s definitely grotesque and gory to the max but at the end of the day it doesn’t do much. It stars Kristen Stewart, Léa Seydoux, and Viggo Mortensen but unfortunately not one bit of the acting stands out.
Stewart is good, as expected, but other than that all of the acting is either bland or feels forced. The main character, played by Viggo Mortensen, gives a solid performance but I expected him to be way better — especially with his super unique character.
Plot wise I don’t want to give away too much, but I can say that the movie starts way too late into its runtime. I think the plot is interesting, and the whole surgery and intimacy thing works in general because of an initial wow factor — like what is this world? What is going on?
However, once it all starts to come together and make sense, the movie doesn’t become anything. It feels like the movie just keeps adding stuff. We get this cool story from the beginning of the film and finally, everything connects a little… but then it all just keeps repeating. Not necessarily repeated stories but the ideas themselves are very repetitive.
I will say there is a few redeemable qualities of Crimes of the Future.
The score is actually really good. From the first second to the final second, the score had me more into the movie than the actually plot. Crimes of the Future is a mix of sci-fi and romance and again, really pulled me into the movie.
Along with that the cinematography wasn’t BAD, at times it did feel forced, but overall I think it allowed for better storytelling. The story itself is good. It’s unique, original — and I am all for these original stories, 2022 has actually been really great for them — but at times the originality gets swept under the rug with the wow factor of the film.
The film as a whole is gory, sometimes for no reason. At other times I actually wish it was more gory. There area few key events that just lose all weight since there wasn’t as much blood and wow factor mixed in. The gore overall does feel necessary as this movie does revolve around human organs, and I actually love the way they explore that element of this world but at times it feels out of place.
At the end of the day if you enjoy body-horror and the wow factor can do it all for you, then Crimes of the Future is the film for you. But if not, you might not be too impressed.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
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About Crimes of the Future
As the human species adapts to a synthetic environment, the body undergoes new transformations and mutations.
With his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux), Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen), celebrity performance artist, publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. Timlin (Kristen Stewart), an investigator from the National Organ Registry, obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed…
Their mission – to use Saul’s notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution.
