(2021) Bliss - Supposedly a Great Sci-Fi Drama but Sadly did not Deliver

I noticed this movie was quite buzzing on the internet even before it premiered on Prime Video. So I was quite intrigued to watch it when it was finally released few days ago. I got the chance to see the movie during the weekend, and I will go straight to it now.

Brief Story Line

Greg Wittle (Owen Wilson - Cars 3 and its predecessors, The Internship etc) was a regular guy who seemed to be on a personal crisis after being divorced and having active imagination of places he has never been. His daughter Emily (Nesta Cooper - The Travelers TV series etc) was the only who still cared for Greg.

After an incident happened at his office, Greg met with a mysterious woman named Isabel (Salma Hayek - Drunk Parents, Wild Wild West etc) who tried to convince him that they were living in a simulation world where both of them and very few other persons were the only real people while the rest were fake characters. As Greg became highly attracted to Isabel, he would soon be caught in a situation where he could not determine which were real and simulation.

And what would happen to these two? Find them all in this drama movie.

End of Brief Story Line

The reason why I wanted to watch this movie was because people were comparing it to The Matrix especially with the idea of simulated world. But as I was watching it especially in the early part, I thought the movie seemingly unclear of the direction where it was headed. I was hoping when finally Salma Hayek appeared it would be better. Which it actually did. For a very short while. 

When we got to the more interesting part I could not help feeling the movie to be a bit depressing, especially seeing the relationship between Greg and Isabel which did not exactly provide an interesting aura and in fact felt a bit toxic. Not until we got to the middle where we were finally getting somewhere. The story got better and I thought it would be having an amazing finale/climax.

Unfortunately though, it did not deliver. The ending to me was really terrible as it did not provide any closure and there was no big reveal that would give me the satisfaction of understanding. It felt like we were given a big puzzle where we would be getting proper solution in the end, but instead we were given more puzzle and were expected to think of the solution by ourselves. Perhaps I was not intelligent enough to understand what the director/writer wanted to tell us, but whatever the reason is, I personally was disappointed by it.

The movie was categorized as science fiction drama which I thought was actually correctly classified. It did have some science fiction and drama, even if the science fiction part was never truly explained. The story telling did little to convince me out of branding this a terrible movie. I have watched quite a lot of Owen Wilson movies where mostly were comedic in nature and I personally thought he did not really suit this depressed full of crisis character. Meanwhile Salma Hayek was slightly better. At least Nesta Cooper was convincing as Greg's daughter. Oh there was a surprise appearance of Bill Nye the Science Guy (I recognized him as he guest starred in several TV shows).

Overall this movie seemed like it has a great idea. It might have been good if the final part has a major big reveal to satisfy audience like me who was already intrigued by the "mystery". The supposedly wonderful romance was sadly a bit unconvincing whether if it's in the simulated or the real world. The only thing the movie succeeded to give me was the irritated feeling of spending 103 minutes of my time to watch this. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 2 out of 5 stars