**THE BAD: ‘BLISS’**

WRITING: 35
ACTING: 65
LOOK: 70
SOUND: 50
FEEL: 20
NOVELTY: 15
ENJOYMENT: 20
RE-WATCHABILITY: 10
INTRIGUE: 15
EXPECTATIONS: 15

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**The Good:**

That opening scene, with its bleak colours and constantly tinging phones (not to mention Greg’s dismissive behaviour) made me so stressed out.

Simple but lively directing, editing and cinematography keep up a good flow even during less suspenseful moments.

I like how most of the intense moments in this film are sprinkled with just a hint of dark humour, making them exciting as much as shocking.

Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek work well together but it’s Hayek who draws he longer straw by fully embracing her mysterious and charming part.

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**The Bad:**

Despite two fine performances from Wilson and Hayek, the characters themselves aren’t very engaging and say or do nothing to make us care for them

Greg and Isabel fall in love very quickly, but it doesn’t evoke any stronger emotions, since we don’t know them very well and we know Greg’s family even less. Most people surrounding our two leads remains underdeveloped and distant.

The script keeps teasing audiences with snippets of strange events to keep up the main mystery, but it never delves deeper into these things and consequently, it feels like the film forgets what it’s trying to achieve.

Most of the film feels like constant build-up and the script doesn’t arrive at answers or conclusions fast enough.

There are some similarities to The Matrix here, but unlike the 1999 classic, Bliss doesn’t do a very good job of creating and maintaining it’s science fiction premise or providing viewers with answers.

I came in expecting bigger sci-fi shenanigans, but the simulation is just an underused gimmick and a framing device for a strange and somewhat convoluted relationship drama.

What’s frustrating is how the film fails to answer the most prominent questions satisfyingly, and how the ecological message seems shoehorned in just to make the film stick with modern audiences.

I was hoping for stringer dramatic tension and more outreaching emotional content, but Bliss remains very emotionally shallow.

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**The Ugly:**

Also known as Matrix: The Day the Blue Pills Ran Out.

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**VERDICT:**

_A bleak Matrix-ripoff that somehow manages to be too convoluted for its own good despite not having much of a plot at all._

**32% = :x: = BAD**

I think the main flaw of the movie is that it was trying too hard to convince us that the dystopian world was fake from the very start. For example, when Greg leaves his office and his wallet on his desk glitches. Greg wasn't there to see it so that was solely for the audience. Just like the multiplying background people or the van that Greg crushed with his mind.

It's clear by the end that those were all red herrings and the movie is about drug addiction and drug-induced psychosis. His prescription bottle read Hydrocodone, an opioid used for pain relief. On the phone he talked to his daughter about his fake injuries. He crushed his last two pills and snorted them off-screen before leaving his office. Isabel slips him something in his drink when they first meet, that's when his bender begins (along with the "powers"). From then on, Isabel and Greg seem to experience a drug-induced shared psychosis (aka folie à deux).

One way that could explain the "glitches in the Matrix" is if we assume that the audience is not an objective observer but either a third party in this shared psychosis or simply an extension of Greg's deluded imagination.