Too cute by half and too glib in full, Vice is a condescending, albeit entertaining, oversimplification of one of the most controversial figures in American history. Director and writer Adam McKay is too preoccupied with sanctimonious gimmickry to craft a well-rounded narrative of a complex man. Christian Bale is excellent as Dick Cheney, acting through one of the most stunning physical transformations ever undertaken for a role, but the film comes off as a smug lecture just shy of propaganda rather than a proper biopic. Mild spoilers ahead…

Un-American. Treasonous. Racist. Sexist. Instead of describing the next embarrassing farce of the current American political landscape, this incendiary hyperbole is being used to characterize an innocuous Neil Armstrong biopic as one of the worst things to ever happen in Hollywood. Immune from neither the right nor the left, Damien Chazelle’s First Man is a strange casualty of today’s outrage culture, an ugly trend that is slowly suffocating productive discourse in favor of holier-than-thou fist-waving. Empathy and meaningful dialogue are dying, and the current zeitgeist has spoken in the voice of an absurd motto: if you’re not mad about everything, then you don’t care about anything.