In “Alice,” a coming-of-age revenge thriller from the writer-director Krystin Ver Linden, the eponymous fundamental character (Keke Palmer, “Akeelah and the Bee,” “Hustlers”) efficiently flees an abusive enslaver (Jonny Lee Miller) solely to find the yr is definitely 1973. Sure, 1973, and she or he and her fellow “domestics” have been trapped in a century-old bubble on a Georgia plantation, the place not a lot has modified since Emancipation.
The occasions that the film says it’s impressed by reportedly date again to the Sixties, however Ver Linden pushes the clock ahead to the Blaxploitation period in order that she will be able to obtain her fait accompli: After studying a stack of encyclopedias offered by her savior and sidekick, Frank (Widespread), and taking marching orders from Pam Grier in “Coffy,” Alice morphs into an Afro-sporting Black Energy heroine able to free her kin again on the plantation and precise revenge on her white captors.
Ver Linden desires us to view Alice as an empowered freedom fighter. As a substitute she lands as a caricature of 1, because the movie by no means actually metabolizes or unpacks its conceit: the bonkers time-traveling predicament of its protagonist.
As a substitute we’re made to sit down by a microwave-dinner model of Black historical past — from slavery to civil rights to the Black Energy motion — all whereas Palmer’s character shouts inadvertently comedic one-liners at her white enslavers like, “I don’t give a rattling about your life!” Other than the steadying cinematography (Alex Disenhof) and some moments when Palmer leans into the extra delicate elements of her vary, “Alice” takes the historic struggles for Black freedom in America and exploits them in essentially the most vapid methods attainable.
Alice
Rated R for racial slurs, violence, torture and sexual assault. Working time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters.