Fortunately, it stayed in the former territory, being, in the end, a sort of well-made and actually interesting Black Mirror episode. My only complaint was that the weird hallucinations of the main character never paid off in the way I've come to expect from thrillers - the kaleidoscopic, convulsive movements of the spectral dancers veiled no deeper meaning behind their tight choreography, and the phantom of the crimson airplane disappeared from the plot as rapidly as it vanished from the desert. There were a few other items and details that seemed in need of a tooltip, but none of them were serious enough to impede the pace of the story or interfere with the audience's connection to the characters.

The movie was a solid thriller, and it's worth watching.

Olivia Wilde stated that she based Chris Pine's character on the "pseudo-intellectual" and "crazy" Jordan Peterson. One of the selling points that convinced me to watch this movie was the prospect of seeing a caricature of Jordan Peterson. I must say it was quite entertaining to see him lampooned as the film's villain. 

Indeed, Jordan Peterson is a bit of a villain in real life; his favorite crime is to disguise a basic thought by throwing as many references and words as possible into a 15-minute answer to basic questions such as "do you believe in God?" He's like the birthday gift wrapped in a box inside another box inside a smaller box, and so on. Only a very small gift can remain inside the last box, and that's exactly what Jordan Peterson brings to the table; he brings small thoughts and tiny ideas and wraps them up inside dozens of references to mythology, symbolism, Marxism, psychology, clean-your-room-ism, lobsters, and Jung. 

He's actually quite good as summoning these references on the fly; combined with the whimsical cadence of his speech and the gentle timbre of his voice, the sheer volume of these references make listening to him irresistibly mesmerizing. All of his best ideas come directly from Jung, so much so that I was deeply disappointed when I discovered that almost everything Peterson says in some way traces its origin to "Man and His Symbols." I wasn't disappointed in him, though; I was disappointed in the many Christians who reference Peterson constantly but would never dream of mentioning Carl Jung. 

Even though his ideas are either borrowed or blue, the world is still treating him as something new. He is seen by many as one of the preeminent figures of this age. Nonetheless, the magnum opus of the "most important intellectual of our time" is nothing more than a Self Help book. He is Tony Robbins with elbow guards and a chalkboard.

The movie also touches on the incel problem, a question which would take too long to discuss here. Instead, I'll focus on the movie's incels and the choices they made.

It's clear from the beginning that the men working on the Victory Project were not starting quarterbacks in high school. They are average men, submissive, subordinate, indecisive, socially hesitant, and of low status. I find it revealing, though, that their "dark fantasy" and "sinister desire" is to simply have a wife to love and a job with meaning.

In absolutely no way are their actions justified. The men in this film are criminals.

But, it's also unfair to assume that the real world incels just as dangerous. In real life, incels sit and home and play video games all day; their worst offense is usually nothing more than being creepy and staring too much. Their designation as "involuntarily celibate" reveals that their social state is not desired - they want a gf, they just don't know how to be normal enough to get a gf. Portraying them as villains in movies like The Batman and Don't Worry Darling does little more than exacerbate their already frustrating situations.

Then again, they do make for good cannon fodder as bad guys. They always seem to end up in a gang of some sort in these films. Maybe that's how the Minions started?