Crimes Of The Future (2022) Review

Aside from his near perfect “A History of Violence”, David Cronenberg directs a plethora of disgusting and disturbing films, yet I am one of the fools that continues to watch them. 

For “Crimes of The Future”, I wish I had the willpower to look away! Ahhhhh!  But at least, I’ve tried. I’ve tried to understand his messages, his speeches, his more than stupid and incoherent dialogues. This director has been on a loop for at least 35 years. He has his own atmosphere and his own art of creating unease. Cronenberg knows how to film bizarre stories. Unfortunately, Crimes of The Future also goes into dirty, filthy, disgusting, disturbing, unhealthy, and degrading territory. 

It has a similar atmosphere to “Existenz”, with its skeletal, sprawling, slimy, dripping beds and chairs. There’s the sexual aspect of phallic objects penetrating the body, but all over, not just in the private parts. Well, what did I expect, I said to myself. Cronenberg’s “Crash” proved to me that he is a big pervert devoid of genius. His version of “The Fly” remains his best film… and yet it’s only a remake that’s already ten times worse than the original.

The dialogue is horrible, some scenes are nauseating, this film is hard to watch. Pseudo-artistic moments of morbid scarifications, abdominal openings (provoking sexual pleasures) and no pain, including a child’s corpse (not easy to watch, by the way…) A supposedly futuristic world in which only a few people live, and all in the same delirium. Well, a world is a misnomer, because all we see is a street and 2 or 3 empty buildings.

Here, Viggo Mortensen looks like Dolph Lundgren. Except that Dolph would never have allowed himself to be soiled by this director. What’s more, Viggo, who is an excellent actor, manages to play badly here. Now that’s a master stroke! If a director can get his great actors to play badly, that’s art! Even Kristen Stewart becomes a “bad acting Bella” again! In other words, she manages to recapture her character from Twilight, which is, for me, her worst role!  

As for Léa Seydoux, she doesn’t need David C to be completely bland and limp. And there are virtually no answers in this film: Why does the father of the child who ate plastic also get killed? Why do humans produce neo-organ? Simply because they don’t take care of the planet? Cronenberg once again takes up the theme that is close to his heart and that fans of his filmography have already seen him tackle in several of his opuses: that of transhumanism. Unfortunately, not everyone is interested!

To sum it all up: catchy title, good actors who play badly or bad actors who are true to themselves, incomprehensible film and an ending as bad as the film itself. Extraordinarily original messages: the planet is in trouble.  We don’t understand how humanity could have evolved in such a way. I can’t think of a single good thing about the film, apart from perhaps having survived this veritable purge.