10 Great Recent Sci-Fi Movies You Probably Haven't Seen
4. The Bad Batch
The Bad Batch is basically The Neon Demon cosplaying as Mad Max. It’s a dark and grisly trek across the desert, and is the sort of film you’re just as likely to love as to hate. If you can get with the aesthetic which is both gritty and glamorous though, it just might be the film for you.
The titular Bad Batch are society’s undesirables, locked away in a fenced off area of the desert to fend for themselves. Early on, our heroine Arlen has her right leg and right arm chopped off, and things don’t exactly get easier for her from there.
Lead actress Suki Waterhouse doesn’t exactly pull up trees as Arlen, but the supporting cast of Jason Momoa, Keanu Reeves, Giovanni Ribisi and Jim Carrey ensure there’s a high quality throughout.
It’s a strange film, one full of set pieces yet at the same time slow and almost melancholy in its pacing. The Bad Batch feels like a very focussed movie in its tight inspection of Arlen, but it’s also a loose wander through the desert.
It’s certainly not a hardcore sci fi, but the future dessert dystopia is just enough in the tropes of the genre to warrant inclusion.