It is funny that in the same week that the Oscar-tipped epic The Brutalist was engulfed in a controversy about its (relatively minor) use of AI, audiences were presented with the first entirely AI-generated movie! Or at least what you imagine an entirely AI-generated movie would be: Netflix’s shiny, sterile Back in Action, a film so dismayingly soulless that it could mark a new low in Hollywood creativity.
Why Cameron Diaz chose this to be her first film in a decade is just one of the many mysteries kicked up by Back in Action, which is currently sitting atop Netflix’s Top 10 list. Others include: “When did Andrew Scott forget how to act?”; “What karmic debt does Glenn Close owe Netflix on the heels of this, The Deliverance and Hillbilly Elegy?”; and “What is the rate of return for a straight-to-streaming blockbuster that rented out the Tate Modern for an action setpiece, then staged a combined speedboat and motorbike chase along the Thames?”
