I tried, guys. I promise you I tried. Oh, how I tried to give Vice, the new Adam McKay movie, a fair shake; tried not to read the movie as “The Big Short, but wicked extra, and also obnoxious.” But I couldn’t, because that’s exactly what it is, times ten, and don’t let any clever types try to convince you it’s, like, a critique of liberal clickbait media tactics or whatever. It is liberal clickbait.
As you well know, I’m pretty liberal, but being liberal doesn’t make me a goddamn sucker, and movies like Vice, functional demonstrations of the “beg the question” logical fallacy in action, don’t work on me. In fact, they invite me to actively turn against them. Hey Adam: I can do a Wiki search, too. Maybe dig deeper if you want to hit Dick Cheney in the name and recount his crimes against the country, of which there’re many.
Or, barring that, figure out a way to peel back his layers of infamy to get to the man beneath them. Vice tries that, too, but fumbles, and Christian Bale’s latest transformative performance, while interesting as a parlor trick, doesn’t help, either. Basically, Vice is a very bad film.
You can read my full thoughts (timeline of Bale’s body morph stunts included!) over at Men’s Health.
A Constant Visual Feast 