It’s a shame that this blockbuster video game adaptation favours an ironic soundtrack of clean-cut 1950s pop ballads because REM’s blitzkrieg bopwould be perfect for this post-apocalyptic mayhem. Goofy when it’s bloody, glinting when it’s conspiratorial, and always looking for another way to surprise you,Prime Video via AP
The eight episodes reflect the iconography and gameplay of the long-running action role-playing franchise. We see in flashbacks the peachy keen retro-futurist America of the 22nd century, which gets nuked, and the 24th century where the surface is a chaotic wasteland and pockets of the old society continue in sequestered underground vaults.
Johnson’s handheld camera puts you in the room, giving the movie an almost tender intimacy; you feel the bond between Lazaridis and Fregin fracture, while the volcanic temper of Basillie is overwhelming. By 2007, when Apple’s iPhone serves as the meteor to Blackberry’s dinosaur, the company is in a death spiral. Baruchel, a Judd Apatow comic, is memorable as a visionary who can’t see that his moment has passed. The final shot, set in shadowed profile, is sublime.