McKay had $60 million to work with and plenty of time to study Cheney. Rather than use those resources to explain what made Cheney tick, McKay chooses instead to hurl rocks at all of the bullet points on Cheney’s Wikipedia page.
Vice has no depth or insight. The choppy, scattered story rolls out like a series of marginal-to-bad Saturday Night Live/Funny or Die skits. McKay was a longtime writer at the former and a co-founder of the latter, and boy does it show.
McKay’s Cheney (Christian Bale) has no core, does not believe in anything, is not even a Republican. According to Vice, Cheney chose to join the GOP because Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carrell) said a few cynical words to a group of congressional interns.
From there, the one thing animating Cheney is something called the Unitary Executive Theory (UET), which basically says that whatever the president of the United States does is legal because he is the president.
In fact, Vice assures and reassures us that Cheney believes in nothing (literally nothing) other than the UET, but McKay cannot explain why. For example, after an hour or so of presenting Cheney as power hungry, when the opportunity finally arises to run for president, Mr. Power Hungry chickens out based on one bad poll. And his wife Lynne (Amy Adams), who is supposed to be the true power behind the snarl, agrees, and they happily retire from politics.
Huh?
Whuh?
If that is not baffling enough, after Cheney comes out of retirement to become vice president under George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell), he puts the UET to work, but only to protect the country from terrorists via the War on Terror — all of which McKay rages against in that same tired way Michael Moore did more than a decade ago.
But again, this makes no sense. Why would someone seeking power for the sake of power use that power to protect the country from terror, as opposed to setting the table to succeed Bush in 2008, or to crush the Democrat party?
Vice has no depth or insight. The choppy, scattered story rolls out like a series of marginal-to-bad Saturday Night Live/Funny or Die skits. McKay was a longtime writer at the former and a co-founder of the latter, and boy does it show.
McKay’s Cheney (Christian Bale) has no core, does not believe in anything, is not even a Republican. According to Vice, Cheney chose to join the GOP because Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carrell) said a few cynical words to a group of congressional interns.
From there, the one thing animating Cheney is something called the Unitary Executive Theory (UET), which basically says that whatever the president of the United States does is legal because he is the president.
In fact, Vice assures and reassures us that Cheney believes in nothing (literally nothing) other than the UET, but McKay cannot explain why. For example, after an hour or so of presenting Cheney as power hungry, when the opportunity finally arises to run for president, Mr. Power Hungry chickens out based on one bad poll. And his wife Lynne (Amy Adams), who is supposed to be the true power behind the snarl, agrees, and they happily retire from politics.
Huh?
Whuh?
If that is not baffling enough, after Cheney comes out of retirement to become vice president under George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell), he puts the UET to work, but only to protect the country from terrorists via the War on Terror — all of which McKay rages against in that same tired way Michael Moore did more than a decade ago.
But again, this makes no sense. Why would someone seeking power for the sake of power use that power to protect the country from terror, as opposed to setting the table to succeed Bush in 2008, or to crush the Democrat party?
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/01/02/vice-review-a-really-bad-house-of-cards-episode/