Netflix’s Black Mirror: #Bandersnatch – WHAT IN TARNATION WAS THAT? REVIEW!!! (No Spoilers)

After seeing people hype up Black Mirror: Bandersnatch to kingdom come, I decided to look into it myself. I mean, an interactive movie that allows me to determine the faith of a character is right up my alley as a gamer. Little did I know I’d be spending almost 3 hours trying to get the ending “I” think is right. 

Here’s the gist of the story: A young programmer makes a fantasy novel into a game. Soon, reality and the virtual world are mixed and start to create confusion. The movie is a commentary on mental illness, game development, free will, time travel, forgiveness, and basically anything that just ain’t nice in the world, all bundled up for you to explore.

And that’s it! That’s all I’m giving you. I feel like the best way to experience this weird movie/game roller-coaster of madness is to go into it completely blind. No seriously, that how I went into it and even the slightest of spoilers would have changed the outcome of my decisions. Kinda funny to say that about a movie depicting choices and outcomes.

I will say this….brace yourself for what’s to come, as this is unlike anything Netflix has done before. I got almost all the endings, except for the very last one and that took me 3.2 hours. The movie itself is only 1.29 hours long. Yeah, my gamer instinct wouldn’t allow me to leave unless I saw everything and oh boy was there a lot to see.

Personally I like it, it’s nothing to be at awe with but it does open up a dialogue for future movies having options in them. Although, I’d still prefer my movies without interactions. Sometimes, you just wanna watch a good movie without stressing out because you made a bad choice…heh, yeah…and there’s A LOT of them in Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. Now another thing that makes Bandersnatch even more interesting, is the concept of time in the show. I’ll very briefly talk about the first 10 minutes of the show to give you a better understanding of what I mean. It’s not technically a spoiler, but as I suggested if you want to go in pure, leave now.

I see you’ve made a decision, whether it’s right or wrong remains to be seen. Anyways, in the beginning, you as Stefan, are given a choice to work alongside a major gaming company. You’ll probably make the “wrong” decision, trust me on that. That will lead to a lackluster game that is reviewed badly by a host on a TV show. Stefan will then decide he wants a re-do, and shortly after the movie restarts from the point of your previous decision, only this time things are a bit…”weird”.

When Stefan meets the developer again, he seems to remember Stefan, and Stefan was able to name his game and identify his bugs before even seeing it himself. So redo’s have impacts to the story. Good luck 🙂

Overall, it’s great experiencing and I enjoyed the concept that they were going within the movie. Oh, and don’t forget to find the rabbit!