In some ways Devs reminds me of Garland’s masterpiece Ex Machina. You have seen Ex Machina, right?
Anyway, both Devs and Ex Machina paint nuanced portraits of egomaniac tech billionaires, something most Hollywood writers are incapable of (even if kissing Mark Zuckerberg’s ass in the execrable Social Network). Only Mike Judge (Silicon Valley) can write a better tech titan than Garland. Not to say Garland posesses unique insight into the mind of businessmen - the truth is his competition is uniformily lacking insight into anything other than the minds of their “academic” peers.
Where Ex Machina was a thought-provoking study of the nature of artificial (general) intelligence, Devs is a far less satisfying meditation on quantum theory and determinism. Speculation on the “multiverse” and free will, so common among sci-fi authors and mathematicians, can never yield results of the sort Devs imagines, in my opinion. Simple thought experiments negate the hard determinism of the 8-episode show, which borders on the ridiculous as characters see themselves speaking 1 second ahead and yet cannot keep from opening their mouths to repeat the prediction.
How are we expected to believe that quantum wierdness in photons somehow disproves free will in a human being composed of weighted particles? Has anyone sent meat through a double slit? But this, shockingly, is the fashionable pose: quantum math as BF Skinner. In Garland’s defense, we don’t have to accept the premise to enjoy the thought experiments, so I will leave further argument to you vs. your screen as you watch Devs.
I generally loathe Nick Offerman, but here is a well-muted performance as Forest, CEO of tech company Amaya. He doesn’t have much to do other than mope over the sad but quantum-necessary fates of everyone who crosses his path, and that’s enough. Whether Forest is a monster or not is an open question. Villains never believe they are evil. This is beyond the grasp of many writers, but not our friend Alex Garland, to his credit. Still, one wonders if Forest would have been more interesting if played by someone like, say, Oscar Isaac. Isaac’s brilliant performance in Ex Machina makes us judge Offerman too harshly, perhaps.
Other characters are mostly as mopey and emotionless as Forest. Of some interest is Zach Grenier doing a decent Mike from Breaking Bad.
More interesting is the influence of Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad on writer/director Alex Garland. Long montages of mundane action set against jarring music are wierdly fascinating. The technique is so prevalent that it bloats what could have been a two hour movie into a full-blown series. It’s all the rage, but I wish Garland were setting trends rather than following them. Leave such brazen imitation to Ozark.
Overall, Devs is better than most of the crap out there. But watch Ex Machina first. Or if you haven’t seen Garland’s Dredd…