 Before you head out to see the new film Men, maybe don't. I'm a fan of A24. It's clear that they will throw anything at the screen and see what sticks, which means it's a wild time for the audience. You don't know if the movie's gonna be an A+, or an F-, and honestly, that's kind of refreshing considering all the crap that comes out in theaters these days feeling very stale and formulaic. Unfortunately, as A24 rises in power and has the ability to purchase more indie films and create their own, we're seeing a lot of really bad movies hit. Which really leads me to this film, Men. This was directed by Alex Garland, who previously did Ex Machina and Annihilation, two films I adore. Visually, to quote the doctor that gave me my colonoscopy, it's breathtaking. Narratively? Holy hell, this is a nightmare. Okay, if you enjoy films like Mother, for instance, where the story is an allegory, there's metaphors, there's spiritual influence, then a film like this might be your cup of tea. I didn't like Mother at all, but I would rather watch that three more times and watch this again. What really sucks about this is the first 35-40 minutes of Men is really good. I was genuinely fearful for Harper as she was being stalked by whatever's stalking her. It's creepy, it's unnerving, it's really well handled. And then things go south really fast, really quick, and I'm just waiting for it to end at that point. It sucks watching a film that you just know has lost you completely, and now you're almost a prisoner in the chair in the theater waiting for the sweet release of the end credits. Quick plot synopsis. Harper has moved into the countryside for a couple of weeks to get away from the fact that she just watched her ex-husband die in front of her. She shacks up in a beautiful 500-plus-year-old home in the countryside. It's got modern meets old-school aesthetic. I dig it, I really do. There's also a tree in the yard containing forbidden fruits that you're not supposed to eat from. Although that's a joke, as the caretaker points out, you can absolutely eat from them because once those apples hit the ground, they become rotten. Symbolism? Metaphorical speak? You bet your apple bottom ass it is. General audiences are not going to like this movie. I will tell you that right out of the gates, and I don't consider myself a general audience member, and I didn't really like this movie either. In fact, I kind of hated it, because it started out with the promise of being so good, and then it just completely let me down. I'm going to get into spoilers in a little bit. Things to look out for. Tiny bit of swearing. Absolutely not for kids under the age of I would say like 15. There's some pretty graphic stuff later on, but it's also not a torture porn by any means, and in fact, there's very little violence at all. Beautiful visuals, a bone chilling score. The score is really well-crafted too, which makes the overall impression that I have all the more disheartening. So those are my thoughts on the film men. Now I want to give you a quick breakdown of my theater experience, because I think that also adds to the overall enjoyment. There were maybe six other people in the movie theater. No one talked during the whole thing, didn't see a single phone go off, which I know there's only a few of us in there, but you'd be surprised in 2022 how many dicks go on their phone. It doesn't need to be a lot of people. After the film was done, and I saw a late movie, I went to the 950 on like a Thursday night. For me, that's pretty crazy stuff. I'm leaving the bathroom, I see a couple gentlemen going towards the exit, and I just, I put myself out there for the first time in my life. I made a little crack at the film. They acknowledged me with the turnaround, a cordial conversation. Next thing you know, 45 minutes later, we're still standing in the lobby of the theater talking about films. It was awesome. This was a 10 out of 10 movie experience for like a 2 out of 10 movie. Not only were these guys movie lovers, but the one was like a DJ slash music engineer. He's very well established on Instagram actually, so if you want to check him out, feel free. I posted a link in the description of this video. Feel free to check that out. I just thought it was crazy, like what are the odds of not only like stumbling upon some people that hated the film, but also, well the odds of that were actually very good. But anyway, people that you know kind of think like me and love movies as much as I do. It was really cool. Anyway, gush fast out of the way. Let's talk about the spoilers. It's tough to admit when you don't know what the hell is going on, but I'm gonna be a bigger person and say, I don't know what the hell's going on in this movie. I have thoughts to why it ended the way it did, but I also found myself not caring at all, and was just frustrated watching it and just shell shocked by what I was seeing. There's definitely some shocking odd play here. Okay, so as we established at the beginning of this review, Harper's ex-husband dies in front of her ex because she just broke up with him, and then he threatened to kill himself, and then he did. I think it was accidental. He slipped and fell and went through some like chain link fence or whatever. It was pretty gross. So she goes to this home that looks more like Professor Xavier's X-Men mansion than it does any normal place to stay for a couple weeks, but right away things go off the rails. She gets stalked by some dude in a tunnel after she plays music for what felt like 15 minutes. She seriously goes down this tunnel. It's pure black except for the other end that you can see, and she just starts singing. And then here's the echoes. And then she does it again. And then she does it 70 more times. I'm being a little dramatic, but not much. This seriously goes on far too long. A gentleman shows up on the other end of that tunnel, and he just starts full-bore sprinting at her, screaming. She takes off running, loses the trail because women always have bad directions. Right, Alex, the writer of this? So she scurries up the hill, gets away, and walks through a dilapidated set of buildings, old homes, and there's this naked dude standing there looking at her, just very brotastic, creepy, of course. It's weird to see for anyone. She runs out in the middle of the field, and that guy's just standing there watching her. Okay, well, we jump cut to the next day. She's working at her laptop, and he just strolls through her backyard naked. At first, I'm thinking, I mean, it's kind of an eye for an eye. It's kind of fair. She walked through his area, so he's walking through hers. She can't really get that upset, but then he starts looking through the windows, starts eating from the tree. Next thing you know, he's kind of stalking her. And that's not cool. That's where Alex and I are in agreement. He crossed the line. So then the cops show up, they arrest the dude. The cop looks awfully familiar to the dude he's arresting. It's because it's the same actor. And as she gets further into the town and starts seeing some of the town folk, one thing is going to become very clear. All the men look exactly the same, even though they're in different bodies, have different professions. All men are essentially the same, right? Is what I'm getting from this film. You can be a little orphan boy, you can be a priest. At the end of the day, you have all the same motives. You're all pining for the woman and her affection and her attention. And no matter how many times she kicks you to the curb, it just makes you want to get up and strike back and say, look at me. I am man. Hear me roar. At one point she goes to a church. This felt completely out of left field. Keep in mind the last time she attempted to go in town, she was chased away by a screaming banshee. And then the naked dude started walking around her house. This is like day two of her adventures. So the next thing she does is go to a church in the middle of this weird old town and she just starts screaming to the top of her lungs. It's very bizarre. The priest hears this, has a nice sit down with her, blames her for the death of the husband, as a priest does of course. And then the boy who also has the grown man's face wants to play hide and go seek with her. It's just, what is happening? This is the point where I'm gone. I'm completely checked out. Just shits going on. It doesn't really make any sense and it's not supposed to at this point, right? The final straw is when she goes to a pub and all these dudes are there. And the caretaker by the way, he's the best character. He was actually funny. He was like an Austin Powers stereotypical British dude. I found him funny. The cop is also at the pub where he informs her they had to let the naked guy go. It wasn't even a day in holding. The guy was left free because he didn't really do anything wrong in his eyes. So once again, these men are all justifying why the woman is kind of hysterical and in the wrong. She goes back to the house and that's where things just go bananas. The lights start flickering on off. People are popping in, disappearing and she eventually cuts the guy's arm like in half. He pulls through it, blade to style when that reaver goes backwards. I know I'm kind of like pulling something out of my ass here, but still that reference is apt. She split down the middle of that guy's arm. Next thing she knows, all the other guys have that same affliction. What is going on? I asked before the dude started giving birth to himself. You heard me. This thing goes Arnold Schwarzenegger Jr. on us, but a lot more graphically so. In the final 10 minutes of the film, we're not gifted one male birth, nor two, or even three, four male birthings right out the ass, straight out the asshole, and don't worry it's tastefully shot from the asshole vantage point. We get to see it open up and the guy's head come up. I think Jim Carrey Ace Ventura too, pet detective, except for completely the opposite because it's not fun and it's very much scarring on my eyes. The dudes on all fours shits out another guy, who shits out another guy. They're all bloated and sweaty and oily and bloody, and this film has more dicks than Jackass forever. A lot of male genitalia for the ladies out there. In a final twist, the last birthing is that of her ex-husband, who is a black man. I mean, I don't even know how that's physically possible. Well, I'll tell you how. I'll tell you how a white man gives birth to a black man because all men are the same. This movie is sane. We're all misogynistic, sexist, something or another, who are just clamoring for that love of a woman. I might be way off. Maybe that's not what this movie is at all. Maybe none of this really happened and it's all in her head and she's trying to justify why the guy would kill himself. So she imagines this cockamamie idea where a bunch of white guys are stalking her and then they eventually shit out her lover, her ex. That makes less sense to me. So I'm gonna go with mine. There's also the whole Adam and Eve tree forbidden fruit thing going on. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. But even in that storyline, Eve is the one that eventually screwed the pooch and convinced Adam. So she's the bad guy here and so the men believe that she's the bad guy and hate her for it. They despise her, but they also at the same time worship her and will do anything for her. Have I lost you yet? Because I lost myself. Okay, those are my spoiler thoughts on men. I hated it. Let me know if you saw the movie and what you thought about it in the comments below. If you had no interest or I turned you off completely, what did you think about my breakdown? Feel free to like the video if you had a good time. Subscribe if you haven't, because I post tons of movie and TV show related content every week on the channel. And if you're Alex, the writer and director, lovely looking film, I'd like to have a sit down with you and maybe we can talk about men and how we're not all just these awful pigs. I'm here for you, Alex. Thanks for watching. All right, while the related videos come up, I'm gonna go ahead and recreate the scene from the film where I give birth to multiple versions of myself. So sit back, relax, grab a loved one and some popcorn and enjoy. Here we go.