Even the worst simulation would have more clarity than this. Life might be messy and weird and scary, but it possesses more honesty than this cinematic misery.

| Original Score: D+ | Feb 11, 2021

It's easy to get ahead of the story in Bliss, and its final stretch has a comedy-sketch capriciousness...

| Original Score: C+ | Feb 6, 2021

Writer-director Mike Cahill takes earnest stabs at big ideas and themes, including the concept of "bliss," but never clearly or cogently enough to draw us in on an emotional or intellectual level.

| Feb 6, 2021

It's basically just explaining the rules of this world over and over again for what feels like an hour while taking the emotions of the characters for granted.

| Feb 6, 2021

It's not internally consistent in its propositions... This film isn't quite clever enough to do that.

| Feb 6, 2021

[T]he film is essentially dramatically static, and little more than a mildly distracted stoner "What if?"

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 6, 2021

Bliss flounders any time it tries to be profound - even if scientist Bill Nye and philosopher Slavoj iek make brief cameos.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 5, 2021

It becomes increasingly difficult to be emotionally present within the simulation of Bliss especially as it demands so much untangling.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 5, 2021

The script gets tangled up in its own perameters of the world or worlds it creates.

| Original Score: B- | Feb 5, 2021

It's a visually striking movie, particularly in how it differentiates between the three different worlds it shows us, but it's also often silly.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Feb 4, 2021

There's an engaging earnestness to it which sits side-by-side with a larky spirit of trial and error, almost like a choose-your-own-adventure fantasy where wild elements of chance keep dropping into the mix.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 4, 2021

I found it equally compelling and frustrating, but did appreciate how passionate it is about what it's attempting to say.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 4, 2021

[Cahill] flounders with creating a sensory experience to match the story's cerebral ideas.

| Feb 4, 2021

There's not much to worry about missing out on here.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 4, 2021

I wish the results were better, and a lot stranger. Cahill's world-building has its moments, though.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 4, 2021

To the very end, we can feel Greg's sadness when his world seems to be crumbling, his exhilaration when he believes he's found a new and spectacularly beautiful reality...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 4, 2021

Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek occupy several levels of reality, or none, depending on how you read writer/director Mike Cahill's imagination. However, none of the levels is terribly believable.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 3, 2021

It must have all made a great pitch, just as it would a fine episode of The Twilight Zone. But Lord knows, reality can be a drag.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 3, 2021

Mr. Wilson has always seemed congenitally sardonic and Ms. Hayek, quite game given the material, is a comedian at heart. So neither seems wholly committed to the seriousness of Bliss -- and if the story isn't serious, what is it?

| Feb 3, 2021

Every syllable of action, as we grind towards the broadly guessable finish, is jeopardy-free and interest-free.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Feb 3, 2021