First things first, this was enjoyable. The film follows Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce) after acquiring the sun and hiring Larry Lamb (Jack O’Connell) in an attempt to become the biggest newspaper outlet in the world. It had solid humour and interesting stakes.
At times, it felt like watching a heist film about newspapers with Larry building his crew of misfits and outcasts to steal readers from competitors. The leading performance of Jack O’Connells Larry Lamb was strong and adds to his current amazing run in films over the last year and honestly he carries this.
From what I’d read, I was expecting a lot more of Rupert Murdoch, but he was ultimately more of this looming force in the background that really didn’t do much.
But here’s THE thing, Ai… the Ai usage was entirely pointless. You could’ve cut it entirely from the film, and it would’ve made no difference to quality. It doesn’t add anything in any meaningful way at all and just leaves a poor taste in your mouth. A lot of people will rightfully write the film off immediately because of this and honestly? Can’t blame em.
Danny Boyle has said recently that it was only used in addition to VFX but did we really need to animate a picture of the Kray twins or slap Margaret Thatcher pointlessly at the end of the film? I think the most egregious thing is using it for mice.
This really puts a dampener on an otherwise solid film that made me care about newspapers for 2 hours. Hopefully, when it’s released to wider audiences, the backlash will help to keep Ai out of more projects.
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