Downsizing

[number six]

! No longer available

So caught Downsizing.

I thought the trailer was interesting. People micronize themselves to live in luxury (because presumably everything is cheaper when you are 5inches). It's definitely billed as a light hearted fantasy/comedy..

It's a trap.

Pretty much all of the trailer is from the first act of the film. After this the film takes a pretty big turn with Matt Damon's character losing his Wife and his money and being thrown into the lower classes in which the movie switches into a treatise on class inequality. None of this makes sense however as the central premise of the film is that 'real' money transfers over at a factor of 100x in the 'micronized' world. So even if you somehow lost all of your money and were forced to work a telemarketing job (as Matt Damon is) you'd be earning at least 100x minimum wage. You wouldn't be poor for long.

There's also the problem of how a micronized economy would work. While goods would be cheaper due to the smaller size labor would not. You would still need all sorts of people doing all sorts of things included skilled labor. How do you pay these people? Why would Doctors (who would be Billionaires instantly) want to continue working? What about people cleaning toilets? It makes no sense. I understand you need to give a movie it's premise.. but it's premise is shrinking people down not that economies somehow stop working in a logical way. Still I could overlook it but at this point it's no longer the movie advertised on the tin.

As the movie shifts from fantasy/comedy to social justice we pick up a romance angle which sorta kinda works. However by the third act it's basically a sermon on environmentalism with just about any trace of the 'micronized' premise wiped away other than some random references. Look, I like a movie that 'subverts expectations' but it needs to do it in a good way. If 75% of your movie is about Global Warming you kind of need to infer that in the trailer and not sell it as a comedy about people being shrunk to 5 inches.

It's a pity as well because there are some good ideas and some of the main lessons it's trying to convey aren't too bad if they weren't delivered in such a heavy handed political way. So not a complete waste like the overly poltical mess Elysium turned out to be.. more like a movie with a good premise hobbled by it's politics ala The Adjustment Bureuo Hey wait a minute.. OK lesson learned.. fuck Matt Damon SCI-FI.

Bottomline eh. It's a catfish.. if you still think its worth seeing its not absolute shit and Chrisoph Waltz is pretty cool in it but it's nowhere near what the trailer implied.