Sometime in the future, undesirables are forced into a desert south-ish of Texas. Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) is the newest resident. She is quickly captured by body-building cannibals who chop off an arm and a leg. Before they can devour more of her, she escapes and ends up in Comfort, a drug-laden party town ruled by The Dream (Keanu Reeves), that is at least as odd a place, but significantly safer. Her adventures result in her meeting Miami Man (Jason Momoa), one of the cannibals. And walking through the desert with his shopping cart, either wise or insane or both, is The Hermit (Jim Carrey).
Some films are compelling, almost forcing you to watch as you wait for the stunning, exciting moments. And some films do that without ever delivering the stunning, exciting moments. The Bad Batch is in the second category. It had my attention, but it’s hard to say why. Perhaps just from balls-out weirdness.
You could call this apocalyptic science fiction, but absurdist cinema is more accurate. A walled off desert wasteland is the setting, but don’t try to figure what that means for the characters. Normally you’d expect an escape attempt, but no. It isn’t that the characters don’t consider that, but that they can’t. That would be how a real world would operate, and this isn’t the real world. The cannibals spend their days, in the horribly hot dessert, working diligently on their pecs. In Comfort, a skateboarding park sits on the edge of the sand. Noodle carts are setup near outdoor photocopiers. Madmen babble and some guy works a Rubik’s cube. The Hermit requests a sketch as payment for information. Arlen teaches a child how to apply eyeliner. None of that makes sense in a traditional world, but then life doesn’t make sense, and that’s the point. Things happen and there is no meaning to any or it. Even kindness and cruelty have no currency. You find your companionship and that’s as good as it gets. Well, it is a message.
Reeves gives a solid performance that feels very familiar and Carrey gives the best of his career, finally toning his physical comedy down enough to work. Momoa is…well, it’s hard to say. It beats his work in Justice League. Physically he’s sells it, but his accent is odd enough that I’m not sure if he was high or if it was a planned part of the strangeness. Waterhouse’s doesn’t have enough energy to give Arlen life or compete with the others. They are all treated well by the camera and given some fitting music to bask in. It’s fascinating.
And then it ends and so does the fascination. With the hypnotic spell broken, The Bad Batch feels empty, pretentious, and a touch silly. Did I really just watch The Texas Chain Saw Massacre crossed with Zardoz and end up with the theme of friendship is magic? Yeah, I guess I did.