After an eight year gap since his last film, director David Cronenberg is back with Crimes of the Future. This is an original story, written by Cronenberg, and not a remake of his 1970 movie of the same name.
In the future, significant advances in biotechnology led to the invention of machines and computers that can directly interface with and control bodily functions. Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and Caprice (Lea Seydoux) are a world famous performance artist couple. They take advantage of Tenser’s “accelerated evolution syndrome”, a disorder that forces his body to constantly develop new organs, by surgically removing them before a live audience in a series of performances. Timlin (Kristen Stewart), a National Organ Registry investigator, takes an interest in their performances and a mysterious group starts to be uncovered.
This is old-school body-horror Cronenberg. It leans heavily on Videodrome in particular but does not have the wit or shock value of that movie. In fact, it is mostly a rehash of old ideas with only the one of a human body evolving so that we can eat waste plastic feeling new.
The three leads are fine performers but none of them are impressive here. Stewart is way too mannered and Seydoux looks out of her depth.
It certainly is gory at times if that interests you, but it is far from scary.
Rating: 4.5 out of 10