SPOILERS AHEAD
Specifically, Final Destination 2, although it doesn’t really matter.
There’s always been a wide range of social commentary in films, sometimes better hidden than others. Sometimes well done and sometimes not so much. And in my opinion nothing makes a movie better than a compelling villain. Thanos is a compelling villain. He’s got a point that isn’t totally wrong. It’s his approach to the solution that is found objectionable. If it was, “I, Thanos, am so cool that I deserve all the money in the universe” he would be a more boring villain.
Like Thanos, and the lesser villains in The Menu there has been a fair amount of anti capitalist messaging. This is usually not very well done, for example the opening action scene in The Beekeeper. The villain is cartoonishly and completely obviously evil because he’s greedy and corrupt. There’s no intrigue or plot development other than a sledgehammer over the head THIS IS THE BAD GUY. In turn, these movies don’t help with intellectual thought about what is wrong with capitalism. It’s more like a simple, “Thou shalt not steal”. And if you do Jason Statham will smite you. Even to the point where psychologically they are counterproductive. A single vigilante beating up and shooting bad guys doesn’t happen in real life. The justice system is also designed to (not) work the way it does.
I love both Final Destination 2 and The Menu. FD2, has what I consider to be the Saving Private Ryan of opening scenes in the horror genre. Sometimes I have watched just the opening scene and bypassed the entire remainder of the film. It’s light entertainment. Background noise while doing something else. While the four times I’ve watched The Menu has been focused, because it’s a remarkably well done movie.
Getting to the point finally. Final Destination 2 is a gematria narrative quality approach to villainy. Death itself is the villain. You already know who is going to probably die in a gruesome fashion before the movie completes. And reusing the established formula, you know that any survivor is subject to a “no, you didn’t escape” finale or sequel bait narrative. The lack of quality in villainy is expressed by the lower level villains in the movie. Within normal villain writing there’s a hierarchy of villainy. Low level obstacle villains. Middling dilemma villains. And the ultimate challenger, the mirror villain.
We know that in FD2 that Kimberly, having the vision of the highway crashes, is the protagonist. The thought that Death itself would be cheated is ludicrous. So any entertainment value is in what happens to the other established villains, the people that death was cheated out of by Kimberly’s vision disruption of Death’s plans. For example the character of Evan. Evan is a terrible character by design and a terrible character by writing standards. He has just won the lottery, has an answering machine message from some girl that obviously only cares about him now that he’s wealthy. Any anti capitalist message - greedy assholes deserve what’s coming to them - is ruined by the cartoonish portrayal of his being a complete asshole. In a short time it’s established he deserves to die. We know he’s going to die. And like poorly written gematria narratives the death of Evan and others, even those we might care about a little more, are insanely arbitrary. The not a great villain of Death itself always wins in the end. But it makes money. And people do love themselves money more than actually thinking things through long term.
On the other hand, The Menu has its own cartoonish capitalist villains. Like even, these people deserve to die and we root against them. A man who’s left by his girlfriend hires an escort, knowing she will be killed at the end of the night. More worried about his last fling “looking good” by having a date than her well being. Finance bros who, well, only care about their investment in the restaurant. A rich couple that proves that they don’t even care about their investment fancy restaurant food. It’s just a status symbol. I have my private jet. A bunch of cars. And I eat at the most expensive and exclusive restaurants.
What FD2 gets right in its own shallow way is the attempt to elevate its villainy to the dilemma villain. Kimberly doesn’t need to have a sword fight with Evan to make it to the next stage. He’s not an obstacle to Kimberly. At best learning about his death and the manner it came to be is a clue for those that have survived to this point. But there’s no payoff. No AHA! moment that Kimberly gets a genuine clue on how to survive. If it’s your first time with any FD movie you don’t realize it until the end that the clues and build up is all a sham.
Margot, the call girl protagonist doomed for death date in The Menu gets the chance to match up against a high quality Mirror Villain. The deaths of the characters he kills we revel in, yes they absolutely deserved to die. But in a sense, Chef Slowik’s plans are ruined by her mere presence. His intent is to hold a mirror up to his individual guests, showing them a final mirror to their souls before their demise. It was supposed to be Evan’s girlfriend (not literally) from FD2. Easy to assume a vapid and shallow bimbo. Only caring about her date because of his status instead of his actual quality as a human being. Margot, despite a less than noble occupation, does not deserve to die. Not from some master plan where her faults are mirrored as no preparation was made on The Menu for her. And certainly not in some low quality gematria narrative style, “RIP Margot. MURDER=38 MARGOT= 38” (yes, they really do in reverse reduction). Yet, the low level villains that are doomed and Slowik’s interactions with them and her yield vital clues. In turn, she holds the mirror to Slowik’s face in the classic cheeseburger finale and wins her freedom. There’s also a side dish of her looking back at the doomed restaurant guests and seeing the fight is gone from them. They will meekly accept their fate, realizing they are actually terrible people. All in one feature length film.
You will never get a Menu quality story from a gematria decode. They superficially appear to be mirror quality villains, claiming to expose hidden truths about your government and society. Yet, their actions ultimately betray them. Give me your money because look how I let you know what you already knew. The world is actually a shitty place. Even at the end, Margot’s survival doesn’t magically return her to a utopia. After her dinner and a show, a cheeseburger and a restaurant in flames, the world isn’t suddenly transformed to a better place. But she is a better person, which ought to count for something.
Now try explaining all this to someone that thinks the number 9 is going to make them gambling winnings.