'Mountainhead' Tries To Skewer Billionaire Tech Bros. It Fails At Every Turn.
HuffPost
The new HBO film from the creator of "Succession" is a waste of time.
“Succession” fans might have a lot to say about creator Jesse Armstrong’s latest project — that is, if they can get through it.
“Mountainhead,” the new HBO film written and directed by Armstrong, is another satirical swipe at wealthy white men having more power than they can handle. But instead of delving into the internal struggles of a family’s media empire, the movie — which aired Saturday night on HBO — follows four tech-bro billionaires on a snowy weekend retreat while the world crumbles under a “rolling international crisis,” the logline states.
Venis (Cory Michael Smith), a tech mogul who owns a social media platform called Traam, is responsible for said crisis after introducing new generative AI tools that spread boatloads of misinformation and deepfakes online. His goal is for Traam to expose the public to so much havoc that it eventually becomes desensitized. Never mind that financial markets are crashing and the U.S. president is calling, worried about the ongoing fallout. The only solution lies with Venis’ frenemy, Jeff (Ramy Youssef), the level-headed billionaire whose company can help filter Traam’s destructive AI.
Fellow rich techies Randall (Steve Carell) and Hugo Van Yalk, aka Souper (Jason Schwartzman), spend the weekend trying to get Venis and Jeff to close a deal because the latter’s tech could apparently usher in a “new world” where humans live forever — which makes sense for Randall, since he refuses to accept his terminal illness diagnosis. However, it’s unclear why the mission is so important to everyone else, save for Jeff.
That’s what makes “Mountainhead” such a long, drawn-out and downright confusing film to watch. Maybe it’s because the movie came together so quickly — Vulture reported that Armstrong wrote the screenplay earlier this year and shot it over five weeks in time for its May 31 premiere. Or, perhaps, it’s due to the slow pace of the story. Either way, it left us with a lot of thoughts.
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