“Sacrifice,” a new star-studded Netflix movie directed by Romain Gavras, plays like an eat-the-rich satire on acid. Some moments are amusingly and ambitiously bonkers but mostly, it’s a willfully nonsensical fever dream that scrambles its ideas about the male ego and the art world, climate change and youth activism, performance and authenticity, into (very smug and glossy) mush.
Chris Evans as an aging action star named Mike Tyler is, at least, hilariously delusional. Mike is fussing about his growing bald spot and plotting a public stunt that should boost his standing on social media when we first meet him in the back seat of his limo on the way to a fund-raising gala on a Greek island. He’s comically self-conscious after some time away from the spotlight and antsy around the other guests, including the trillionaire tech-wiz Ben Bracken (Vincent Cassel) and his wife, Gloria (Salma Hayek Pinault).
The event space is filled with art installations touting progressive slogans and faux-provocative performance art, so it’s not immediately apparent that the band of bleached-blonde youths with guns are, in fact, eco-terrorists. Led by Joan (Anya-Taylor Joy), this feral folk-spiritualist group thinks it can stop the explosion of a volcano that will supposedly trigger an extinction event by sacrificing three gala guests.
Mike, of course, is among the chosen, though — seeing an opportunity for a rebrand, and somewhat taken by the pretty Joan — he decides to side with his captors.
The film is strangely watchable thanks to the sheer volume of curveballs and cameos, from a slinky Charli XCX performance to John Malkovich as a mad scientist with an indecipherable accent. There’s the sense that Gavras wants to say something powerful about celebrity culture and the end of the world — but whatever that is gets lost in his smoke and mirrors.
Sacrifice Rated R for a hostage situation, bloody violence and deaths by volcano. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. Watch on Netflix.
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