Leave the World Behind (2023)★ 6.6/10

It delves into the formation of suspicion and the spread of conspiracy theories amid societal disorder, which is enough to make you curious about what happens next. The music really hits the mark, heightening emotions through multiple parallel scenes. The use of many rotating camera shots adds to confusion and bewilderment. Unfortunately, the script is just not rich enough to carry a movie of over two hours, so they resorted to using lengthy, pointless dialogue to fill time, which is a pretty inefficient narrative approach.

The pacing of the story is really off. Characters always seem to stop at the wrong times and go on long rants, either for philosophical reasons or to explain the plot. It makes me wonder if the writers were just being lazy. They tried to make up for the weak storytelling with editing, including unnecessary attempts to create tension through intercut scenes. There are a lot of scenes where actors just stare into space, only to find that there's nothing remarkable there when the camera changes— it's all smoke and mirrors.

This movie gives me the vibes of "Coherence." It creates a lot of eerie and abnormal feelings through a small group of everyday characters. The movie is intriguing and suspenseful. However, it doesn't give a clear-cut ending and instead plays with the idea of granting a wish, adding a philosophical touch to the whole thing.

While there were plenty of suspenseful and thrilling moments, and a really captivating start, it kinda falls short as it goes on. The screenwriter and director tried to blend everyone's inner fears and worries reflecting a guilty conscience, making the movie turn out a bit puzzling. They didn't quite clarify the story by the end, but they definitely did a good job depicting the protagonist's inner anxiety.

The art design is seriously top-notch, the best I've seen in recent films. It has got a lot of depth and metaphors, but the latter part of the story gets a bit confusing. Maybe I just didn't grasp it completely. Still, I didn't feel like the two+ hours were boring or too long, and it definitely got me thinking. All in all, it's pretty good.

Great! This movie is the most unique American film of the year! It's extremely unconventional, an utter hoax, and incredibly captivating. It delves into the mental state and interpersonal relationships of modern humans from a unique perspective through unknown disasters, unknown crises, unknown motives, and unknown fears. The plot is packed with mysteries, but unraveling them isn't the heart of the story. The Internet shutdown isn't just a tactic — it's the first domino to fall, and humanity and the world will only follow after.

The premise of this film resembles "Knock at the Cabin”, which came out earlier this year, but this one takes a more scientific approach, offering a satirical commentary on a world dominated by technology. Additionally, it seems to reflect some of the anxieties people have experienced during the COVID-19 era. The actors truly carried the everyday-life scenes in the movie with their skillful performances, and the sound effects and cinematography are quite intriguing. Except for the plane crash, the other special effects felt very realistic. The only thing I couldn't quite grasp was the symbolism of the animal; it seemed a bit obscure to me.

Terrorism, media addiction, artificial intelligence, community hostility... The screenwriters and directors of this film gathered all sorts of social anxieties and bundled them into an audiovisual spectacle. The story is left hanging against the backdrop of global reality — of nations turning more conservative along with the post-COVID era — and coming across as empty, scattered, and weak. Even the flashy cinematography couldn't save its soap opera aesthetics. Why resort to using such sensational but meaningless parallel editing to stir emotions? It actually had the potential to be a decent fable.

Do they think they can make a movie without a solid story or well-developed characters nowadays? Simply throwing in some seemingly sophisticated concept is enough to cook up two and a half hours' worth of mishmash, random stream-of-consciousness to impress people? I just couldn't shake the feeling that this film was all over the place, even as it neared the end. None of the characters in it are well-explained or developed, and there's no explanation for the plot twists. It feels like all the actors are just going through the motions, like puppets in some absurd play with no clear purpose.

It's a solid high concept, but it's mixed with too many elements. It purposely creates suspenseful bluffs, but the story ends up inconsistent and disjointed as a result of being unable to explain said bluffs. The filmmaking is smooth, with good cinematography and a nice pace. There are some intriguing spectacles and imagery, many of which could have been better exploited to be more informative and become open to interpretation, but sadly wasn't. Incorporating "Friends" is quite interesting, with the six characters and their interconnected relationships, but it remains superficial, never quite delving deep enough.

Simply cutting off Internet access is enough to bring down a family or a country that's already rotten on the inside. It might sound serious, but the movie takes a more lighthearted approach to it. The last chapter is titled "The Last One”, mirroring the finale title of “Friends”. Young Rose really wants to watch that last episode of "Friends" during the Internet-free getaway, genuinely caring about the show's characters, getting excited for them, and shedding tears for them. Ironically though, in real life, her parents and siblings don't truly care about each other—nobody cares.