Well a new movie year has started and I wanted to reflect on the best things I saw this year but there are a few I wasn’t able to get to. So I sat down to watch a couple of big ones that I missed in the theaters.
I wanted to see One Battle After Another as soon as I saw the first trailer for it. Leonardo DiCaprio playing a super paranoid revolutionary? Yeah I’m in. My wife wanted to see this one too but with a runtime of two hours and forty one minutes, that was a very tough sell. We came close to seeing it in the theater a few times but we couldn’t pull the trigger. Now that it is on HBOMAX (or whatever it is called now) we finally got to check it out.
Lots of people rank One Battle After Another as the top movie of 2025. I am not one of those people. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it and I am glad that I saw it, but I never need to see it again. For me the biggest problem with the movie is the expectations set by the previews and by people considering it an action movie.
Perhaps it is because I have become desensitized to action movies because of John Wick, Sisu, The raid and other incredible movies but I would never consider One battle After Another an action movie. There are some action sequences but given its 160 minute run time, the ratio of action to story/dialogue is heavily weighted toward the latter.
And that is OK because the story and dialogue are really cool. Paul Thomas Anderson also masterfully used the score to create tension where there really was none. The score is simple but the high pitched piano notes helped create a frenzy that was not really there. It gave the illusion of excitement. But it was a damn good illusion. I felt it was a very similar effect to jaws but with high notes instead of low ones.
The story was very… weird. It dances on the line between satire and drama. But the satire is far more subtle than something like The Death of Stalin or the Menu. There are some scenes in this movie that made me laugh out loud. Not because they were funny, but because they were very fine satire of the state of the world today. Some of the scenes made me think “Oh god, that is absurd”… and then I remembered what is on the news every day. So the movie was no more absurd than reality.
When there are action sequences, they are very well done and are indeed exciting. There just aren’t enough of them to consider this an action movie. One of the prime examples is a very long drawn out car chase that takes place entirely on a straight highway road with dips and climbs like a kiddie roller-coaster. Nothing really happens for most of it, but the music, editing and cinematography give the illusion of excitement again.
But where this movie really shines are the unique characters portrayed by some of the finest actors of our time. DiCaprio is amazing as a pot smoking (and I mean a lot of pot smoking) burnt out revolutionary who is raising… or being raised by his teenage daughter. It is actually one of my favorite of his roles. Benicio Del Toro is his usually quirky incredible self as Sensei Sergio St. Carlos. Yes I said “sensei”. He is somehow a Latino Mr. Miyagi… and more. Regina Hall does a wonderful job as the revolutionary Deandra while newcomer Chase Infiniti portrayed the main McMuffin Willa perfectly. I am actually curious to see if we see Chase Infiniti in the Marvel Universe in the future. She was able to handle herself physically and seemed to be the right fit for the new younger characters Marvel is starting to highlight.
But now for the main reason to watch the movie… Sean Penn as Col Steven J. Lockjaw. Yes his name is “Lockjaw”. Penn plays this role exactly how you would expect someone named “Lockjaw” to act. Lockjaw is a very weird and even more horrible person. Oh and he happens to have a lot of power. Great. Penn put in maximum effort in creating this character. Not only did he clearly pump a lot of iron to appear like a hyper-focused aging military Colonel, he created a very unique walk and mannerisms to show just how insane and robotic this man is. He is one of the creepiest characters I have seen in a while. I despised him. I mean I despised him an irrational amount. I loathed him about as much as you can hate a fictional character. I’m actually getting a little angry just thinking about him right now. But that is what sensational actors due. They make you develop feelings for a character and man do I have feelings!
My advice for this one would be to lower your action expectations and be prepared for a long weird story with some amazing characters and actors. If you put yourself in that mindset, I am confident you will enjoy One battle After another.