Utopia” (2024) plunges the audience into a crazy combination of reality and technology featuring Utopia that is nothing less than a dystopian world of the not so distant future. James Bamford has once again directed a film with a powerful story containing the aspect of war and humanity. The plot of the film revolves around Moe Dunford, once a soldier Damon, whose only ambition in life is to get his wife Alexis (Charlotte Vega) back, who had been taken by evil sex trafficking mafia.
But as he follows Karen on her trail, Karen leads him directly to Utopia which is supposedly a ‘surreal entertainment park’ but is actually a dark world of secrets. It serves an entirely different purpose than just amusement, the elite class in this ‘amusement park’ gets to be a part of whatever they want without rules and ethics. The atmosphere is filled with morally ambiguous characters such as Natalie (Alix Villaret) and Jeremy Zenner (Michael D. Xavier) the heads of the park.
I found the sprawling dystopian world filled with twists and turns in the movie “Utopia,” very intriguing and the main character’s moral struggle was fascinating as he consistently grappled with his own inner demons. How nice it is to think through the plot of such a tantalizing work. Albeit I sometimes doubted and questioned how tethered to reality some parts of the movie were, I guess the beauty lies in the ambiguity and turning it into a spectacle rather than holding all portions of events to their original significance, once again, thumbs up. Based in the direction of both the Captain America and X-Men franchises, this film doesn’t quite seem as professional as the other. But at the same time it can never be undermined because it shows its own beauty nevertheless. That being said however, the convergence of characters almost at the end of the movie felt very forced and was a last minute ramble to tie the not-so loose end.
By far the most appalling character has to be Munfeld as played by Jacob Avery-Dunford, who tries his level best to be the one holding that fine balance between sanity and madness but ultimately slips into the pretentious sides. Another striking performance is from Charlotte Vega who plays Alexis, a rather unemotional character but somehow endears. Alix Villaret’s Natalie on the other hand is a complex dynamic character who can hardly be framed as simply an ally or an opponent. Each character combined add so many layers of depth to the story that allow you to pick from a range of exciting perceptions that all coalesce into one.
