Review of Fahrenheit 451 (2018) by Lemon D — 27 Aug 2018

Yikes. Now I understand why this movie disappeared into obscurity immediately after its release, despite HBO's heavy promotional campaign. It's just not good. I mean, it feels like a really high-budget student film.

It tries so hard to be deep and disturbing and relevant, you can actually see the effort. This movie is a weak, testosterone-fueled attempt to cash in on the success of "The Handmaid's Tale" - a tale about a dystopian future where reactionary conservatism has resulted in oppression.

But judging by this film, the story does not translate to our current times... in a world of internet, the Cloud, and constant connectivity, book-burning seems a woefully inadequate means of ridding humankind of the written word and the critical thought that comes with it.

The movie does try to modern it up a bit by burning servers and hard drives instead of books, but it still seems like a totally fruitless effort in today's world where you have access to literally everything that has ever been written in the time it takes to snap your fingers.

It has some pretty good visuals and an effectively grim atmosphere (which was clearly inspired by Blade Runner... I say "inspired" because "stolen" is too harsh), but that's about all that's even remotely good about it.

The entire movie is bland and boring, the story is nonsensical, and both the writing and acting are sub-par. I love both of the Michaels who star in this film (Shannon and B. Jordan), they are both super talented actors, but oh man do they phone it in on this one.

This movie just has nothing going for it. Skip it.