Looker

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Albert Finney and Susan Day go on a misguided adventure into the dark dealings of a company that... wants to make more effective commercials and light guns? Is Digital Matrix the worst company ever?

There I am, watching this movie, wondering what Sam was thinking by choosing this movie for an episode. Honestly, the first 1/2 of this is pretty solid - mostly because you don't know what is going on in the same way that Albert Finney's Dr. Larry Roberts is stuck in the middle of a murder conspiracy and trying to put the pieces together. Then the second half is you focusing on hoping that the movie explains why the evil corporation does what it does only to learn that you never learn. You're lost in the same way that Roberts is when he's zapped by a light gun.

Light gun, you say? What is that? Well we'd like to know too. It's power is dubious. What it does is shoot out a white doily pattern that:

1. blinds you
2. makes you "lose time"
3. makes your owner of the gun invisible for a brief time

How would one thwart such an advanced weapon that doesn't make sense and manufactured by an advertising firm? Well you simply put up your arm or wear Doc Brown's sunglasses from 2015.

So what you're left with is more questions than answers at the end of this. Why did Digital Matrix murder their contract models? What possible gain did they have from doing it? It can't have been to silence them, as their knowledge is the same as what Digital Matrix has released to the public. Why did they pin the murders on Dr. Larry Roberts? Just make them look like accidents. Even if you can't fix their obvious connection, you're inviting this guy to try and defend his name and thus tear your whole company to the ground. Lastly, why did you invent a light gun? You make commercials. I mean come on. One could make an argument that Digital Matrix is making deep fakes so they can rule the world by having politicians say whatever they want but then the politician could just say, "I never said that" and now you've got Congress on your ass (unless Mitch McConnell is still there and then nothing is getting done except orphanage's burning down to his delight). Maybe they are REPLACING those whom have been "Lookered" ala Fallout 4 but that's not something that is happening here. If Digital Matrix had just made good commercials without killing models or bothering with light guns, they would have risen to be the biggest/wealthiest production company in the world - we're talking Apple money here guys. No instead you had a board meeting where Gary said, "What if we murdered our Lookers after we scan their naked bodies?" and everyone else in ties stands up and applauds. If just one of those coffee swillers had just asked "But why?" you'd have a different film. That doesn't happen. Thus Looker suffers from The Idiot Plot and suffers maybe in the hardest Idiot Plot we've ever seen.

Because of that, Looker is something that needs to be seen to believed. The second half is such a complete meltdown and beyond inept (Larry's car "crash" of gently placing his Porsche 928 in a fountain comes to mind) culminates in the final battle that is really a battle with the editor lost on what to do with the story. So yes, this is a do from us as a great and fantastic train wreck.

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