Let's Be Evil (2016)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Captivating movie !

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The most obvious theme here is TECHNOLOGY. Jenny willingly sends in her physiological evaluation and all requested vitals to an organization which she knows nothing about. We later find out that a younger participant in the program uses this information about Jenny's fears and physiological traits such as her empathy and sympathy against her. She uses this to scare the crap out of Jenny but also gain her trust as Jenny "adopted" Cassandra as a younger sister. Jenny tries to "humanize" Cassandra as she lacks many human traits due to being trapped in an augmented reality education system where she is also deprived of normal human conversations. This brings us to our second theme, EDUCATION. In the opening scene, we see a news interview discussing the state that our education system is in. The anchor listens to a man talk about how our education system in the U.S. is awful compared to those in China and other military power houses. This film really depicted the society we would live in if we adopted those all-informative, social interaction-lacking schools. This interview could also act as a foreshadow for the rest of the film. The school system may have changed in response of a request to increase the complexity of our education system. "If it's not broke, don't fix it." Arial even says the children aren't encouraged to communicate with each other unless it is necessary. That sounds like a joke to me. This is why these kids are so desensitized. The name of the program is actually called the POSTERITY PROJECT. It should be pretty obvious that education is a huge part of this film. Another theme I have discovered is THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN REALITY AND AUGMENTED REALITY. Jenny is trapped in the virtual world so long, that she fights for her life in it. She doesn't realize that death in an augmented reality world wouldn't result in death in the real world. Maybe if she died in the augmented reality world she'd come back to reality. I think this film relates to the Black Mirror episode Playtest (also on Netflix). The episode Playtest also had a program that used your weaknesses to attack you in your most vulnerable spots, just as Cassandra did to Jenny. Jenny seems to be confused of what is reality and what is augmented reality. The next theme is CURIOSITY. This one is another obvious one. Jenny walks into the Posterity Project and puts on glasses that she hasn't been instructed to put on or even informed about. This starts Jenny's nightmare. Let's hit another theme, HELPLESSNESS. This shower scene which everyone is confused about doesn't relate to the plot at all. It relates to Jenny's soft spot. Helplessness, she knows the feeling so very well. She watched her dad die right in front of her knowing she couldn't do anything to stop it. We see another instance where helplessness is exemplified towards the end of the movie when the chaperones stumble upon what seemed to be a previous chaperone trapped in a locked room. There seems to be a way to get him out as there is a puzzle attached to the door, but Darby and the others find out the hard way that there was no possible way to help the man. This could've also made the augmented reality more "real" for Jenny as this feeling of helplessness has proven itself in the real world as well. Boom, another theme, FALSE SENSE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT. When the 3 chaperones hear the voice over the intercom as soon as they break the ice, the voice uses positive, reinforcing words and phrases such as "Congratulations", and telling the chaperones that they are part of "saving our country's future". Tiggs even creates a sense of false accomplishment by saying being selected for the program makes her feel safe and important. But who knows, the other 2 chaperones could just be a part of the simulation too. The last theme I have found in the film so far is TRUST. Cassandra knows that the best way to gain someone's trust is to relate to them but also completely differ from them if that makes any sense. Familiar is comfortable, but opposites attract.. As soon as the 3 chaperones get put into the simulation, Jenny has to trust the other chaperones because they're the only ones she can relate too. Everything and everyone else is extremely unfamiliar and could be seen as a threat. This was probably in the film to create a sense of comfort for Jenny as it would be one of the most uncomfortable situations she'd ever experience. Cassandra used the method of relating and differing from Jenny that I talked about earlier as Jenny and Cassandra were always the odd ones out. They were always left out from the group. She also differed from Jenny in the way that Cassandra was a genius and Jenny couldn't even imagine what it would be like to live as a child prodigy. In summary, this film has many themes that take time to discover but hold great meaning. Confusing isn't always bad, it just means that you haven't acquired the knowledge to understand or appreciate something yet. Everything you'll every read or watch has great meaning and a purpose behind it. So if you found this movie confusing, watch it again, and again, and again until you've finally found a meaning that relates to you, and share it with people because that is how the education system should work. Our minds should flourish from the generosity and knowledge of others.

Jenny (Elizabeth Morris) suffered a tragic event as a child involving her dad and a shower, but we really don't get closure as to the details. As an adult, her mom is ill and with bills piling up she accepts a job on the "Prosperity Project" whose goal is the extreme education of children. Jenny, and two others are to monitor the children. They are expensive live-in hall monitors. While at the project they wear "Google" style glasses. Things are very computer and graphic oriented. The children are like machines and learning at a very high and fast level. At 37 minutes into the film, Jenny flashes back to the event and then about at 50 minutes, things start to unravel as the film becomes ultra confusing until the end, which still leaves you thinking.The title is a play on the Goggle ethics slogan, "Don't do evil." Darby (Elliot James Langridge) another fellow glorified hall monitor makes "Star Trek" references like "Kobayashi Maru" where Kirk won an academy exercise by reprogramming the computer. This is a film that might be more interesting the second time through as things start to make sense at the end, including the writer's conversational clues. I am sure I missed half of the techno-weenie stuff.The problem was that the film consisted of mega computer graphics, dark rooms, air duct scares, and a large assortment of colored filters (I think they used every filter in the pack). This is not a horror film, but a sci-fi thriller. The ending does give you some closure, but for me I still had questions. I don't recommend this film for the casual viewer.Guide: F-word. No sex. Male butt nudity.

A good idea gone wrong is in sum, the best way to describe this movie. Although the idea was filled with potential, the execution and also some of the parts of the idea itself were poorly thought out. From the very beginning, any viewer accustomed to this genre of film, knows exactly what's going on and how it all is gonna end. It definitely doesn't help that both the movie poster and the title already practically tells you everything you need to know.Then you got the cast. Newbies, but actually reasonable and sometimes good in their roles. Although we never actually feel attached to any of them. Because the movie doesn't allow you to.Then there's the obvious enemy. So predictable and so unbelievable, you can't accept what you're seeing. I mean, we're talking about adult people with the IQ's of a potato that let themselves be dominated and killed by children. Unarmed, defenseless children, which only weapon is that they can mess with what the characters perceive, because of the obvious tool being used to manipulate them.And yet none of them has the common sense to stop for a minute and think "Wait! It's the glasses. They're manipulating me and misleading me through the glasses. I'll make a torch with the materials available to me, take this glasses off and teach this kids a much needed lesson."If they were dealing with teenagers, I'd be more inclined to believe what I was seeing. But a bunch of kids that can easily take down a grown man, and he simply lets himself be killed... There's only so much one can see and accept.You can see this movie, but it will left you with the sense of wasted time. There's those movies you can simply miss and never see them, and you will not actually lose anything. This is that kind of movie.

This is a typical -- watch it twice -- movie.A nice B movie with some head scratching at the end.----- SPOILER BEYOND THIS POINT ------There are small hints all the way through the movie. The Augmented Reality is the key to Questions that pop up in the first run.Keep an close eye on messages showed on the interface (glasses) they are not as random as they appear.At the end you figure out, that the "adults" are the the rats inside the lab controlled by the children. Because all they wanna do is play with their pets :D