In the opening moments of writer/director Harmony Korine’s Baby Invasion, a complex storyline is introduced: a game developer tells an interviewer that she wanted to create a game that is so realistic that it blurs the line between fantasy and reality. This game follows professional thieves who break into the mansions of the rich and powerful, rob them, and kill them while using baby face avatars to conceal their true identity. The interviewee then explains that an unfinished version of the game was stolen by terrorists and leaked online. Worldwide obsession followed, with some players copycatting the game’s storyline and turning its fictitious crimes into reality.
Sound complexly fascinating? It is… well, at first. The set-up for Baby Invasion is thrilling because it offers the possibility of an artful, bombastic, and wholly Korine-esque examination of modern entertainment media and the all-consuming effects it can have on its users. This possibility is largely squandered, however, because, aside from the opening and closing interview with the game’s creator, the entirety of the film’s content consists only of watching the game itself unfold while it is being played by an anonymous user.
Baby Invasion is a fascinating and endlessly colorful game, but it’s still, in the world of the film, just a game. As anyone who has ever watched anyone play a video game for an extended period of time without participating themself already knows, it can be hypnotic and enticing at first if the player is skilled and if the game was created with artistry, but the experience inevitably grows tiresome and dull.
The film Baby Invasion is entirely comprised of art-house and experimental spectacle. There are simply no character or plot details to keep its viewer emotionally engaged beyond its often-enticing surface aesthetics. Its endless flash can only partially make up for its seeming lack of substance.
Korine’s previous feature, the entirely infrared-filmed Aggro Dr1ft, was also highly experimental and low on plot and character development. That film got old fast and failed to hold interest due to its lack of humanity and monotonous style. Like Aggro Dr1ft, Baby Invasion struggles to have enough worthwhile content to fill a feature-length runtime. Baby Invasion, however, is able to hold its audience’s attention with more frequency due to its visual and aural variety.
Knowing Korine, there is quite possibly more to Baby Invasion than meets the eye. There are hints of astute social commentary that could have really raised debate amongst its viewers if the film’s themes had been more clearly and thoroughly developed. Like Korine’s current defining masterwork, Spring Breakers, multiple viewings of Baby Invasion could feasibly unlock layers of meaning that aren’t initially obvious. Korine’s challenging work always demands more than one watch to be fully gestated, but Baby Invasion just isn’t enticing enough to beget the desire for multiple experiences of it.
Baby Invasion’s primary fault lies in the core of its design: it simulates the experience of watching someone else play a video game. It’s a weird, wild, and sometimes alluring game, but it simply isn’t inclusive enough for it to be as memorable or as insightful as it wants to be. Baby Invasion’s audience is too often and too heavily disregarded for it to get little more from the film than the experience of being a detached spectator who watches Harmony Korine have all the fun.
GRADE: C+
