I think the key to some of the strangeness (some of it) is the producer - so you're on the right track there. VICE Films made the movie, along with some other companies. This might seem strange, or maybe even a little "conspiracy theory", but bear with me...
VICE Media is known for its leftism. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but that is something that they're known for. They support a lot of left-ward causes. Hear me out:
I think a big part of the point of The Bad Batch is to criticize meat-eating. Not cannibalism, but anything outside of vegetarianism. Cannibalism is compared with the rabbit snack at the end. The humans are treated like cattle in the movie. Stuff like the girl going off with the cannibal chef at the end even suggests a society where cannibalism (meat-eating) isn't viewed as "bad", even though it should shock us and horrify us. It's casual to them. We, the viewers, are meant to feel bad for the little girl's bunny. Shouldn't we feel the same about people? About any animal being eating? I think that's half of what the movie's getting at.
The other half seems to be a swing at Reeves' character's strange desert cult. The notion of "civilization" being a thin veneer to make palatable a kind of patriarchal sex cult? That's another viewpoint VICE can get behind!
The filmmakers probably wanted to tell a crazy Mad Max-type post-apocalyptic desert story, and they liked the ideas behind the title, that humans might be labelled "the bad ones" and just left to rot in the sun by The Man. But I have a feeling story revisions were gently encouraged to add the subtext and symbolism I lined up above.
It was a weird movie and I liked a lot of it, but other parts were disturbing, not necessarily in a good way. I did like that the main character was mutilated. I thought it was great seeing a movie show us a protagonist needing to deal with real loss of self. But I think it was mostly left-wing Mad Max.
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cyguration (3951)
a year ago
This is probably the most coherent explanation of the film.
I remember keeping this on my radar when I first saw the trailer because of Jason Momoa, and I thought his Miami Man getup looked like he was going to be a real badass, but then I saw the user rating, the user reviews, and read the plot synopsis and couldn't make heads or tails of it all.
The film being a subversive springboard to not-so-subtly critique non-vegan lifestyles and organised society as some sort of patriarchal cult based on their push for the nonsensical "compulsive heterosexuality" agitprop actually makes a lot more sense for what the film was possibly trying to convey.
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Ace_Spade (9544)
a year ago
I almost forgot about this movie until your comment came in.
I stand by the analysis: I think it was trying to make political points. I feel like the movie was a lot closer to greatness than it appears. There is a lot of interesting stuff going on.
Nevertheless, some of the strangeness comes, in my opinion, from the messaging - or attempts at messaging.
With that said, any fans of the post-apocalyptic genre might still get a kick out of The Bad Batch. I don't regret watching it, anyway. Sometimes weird is good.
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