Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018) ***

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018) is an interesting and engaging concept (choose your own movie by making onscreen decisions every few minutes) but the resulting feeling I was left with at the end was more akin to watching an episode of the show. We follow a video game programmer in 1984 (wonder why they chose that year…) whose reality is being controlled by someone else (paralleling the titular book—and its author's tormented life—on which he based his concept). The whole experience lasts approximately 90 minutes (from over 5 hours of footage)—I had reached the point where I could skip to the end credits about 50 minutes in and then I went back to choose different paths, which lasted about another 40 minutes. The direction by David Slade and the hypnotic score by Brian Reitzell are the highlights. The performances are solid. Ultimately, while fun (although bleak, it is Black Mirror, after all), I found Bandersnatch to be a neat experiment but nothing mind-blowing. I'm curious if this film will serve as "season 5" or if we have yet to look forward to that.