I’m In Movie Purgatory!

MK Ultra (2022) Based on actual events, the CIA enlists a psychiatrist to lead illegal experiments using psychedelic drugs on mental asylum patients. Eventually, he will face decisions about the work he’s doing.

Directed by Joseph Sorrentino

Starring Anson Mount, Jason Patric, Jaime Ray Newman

Why I Liked It – I didn’t.

There’s no way to sugarcoat my reaction to this movie. The history at the root of the story is not among the proudest for the American intelligence community. A variety of folks around the globe, but especially the U.S. and the Soviets, got caught up in the pseudoscience of the day looking for any technique that might give them an edge. It included the concepts explored in 2004’s much better movie “The Men Who Star At Goats”. Psychic spies and other failed paranormal studies litter the landscape of the intelligence/military world from the 1960s to the 1980s.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a kernel of a good story idea here. There’s the question (in classic Star Trek fashion) of whether the “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”. The test “subjects” are still human beings, human beings that are suffering before the government turns them into experimental objects. Add in the questions about the borders for appropriate scientific exploration, and the ethics of what is being done. It would be an environment where an interesting character faces profound questions about who they are and what they are doing.

If only.

Instead, we get this drivel. The story is both dull and slow, and there is no character development. You’ll learn nothing about who the main characters are, what they did, or even an inkling of the history behind the story. I’ve noted before that this year is off to a terrible start for me. Lots, and I mean LOTS of bad movies have flowed across my screen. This is an early favorite for the worst movie of the year, and it’s only May.

There are a few interesting scenes, but that’s only enough to keep the movie from scraping the absolute bottom rating.

You can stream “MK Ultra” on Tubi, Philo, Fandango at Home,Plex, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play Movie and Apple TV

Rating ** Not Impressed