Parents' Guide to Bionic

This isn't a great movie nor is it a good action thriller. Too many distracting elements of Bionic make it hard to enjoy. Many of these distractions come in the form of unexplained plot holes, the hazy logic of this future world, the film's overly serious tone, and countless other writing and narrative decisions (like having the sisters be inexplicably amazing fighters). With no reference to or mention of them training to ever be more than long jump track athletes, their fight scenes feel misplaced. Beyond this, many other decisions feel misguided, like the glaring one immediately prompted by the film's premise: so, the film is against prosthetics technology for amputees? Because they will then "take over" various sports making it unfair for "normal" athletes with no bionic or technological bodily enhancement? This "injustice" is the sole reason a criminal villain type launches a murderous campaign?

The film doesn't mention or even give an exposition dump trying to explain how their world in 2035 came to the way it represents how sports are done, but throughout the entire film, for many viewers, something about it all just won't sit quite right. Even if it doesn't outrightly feel like a misguided political statement about gender, the film is bad because of plenty of other reasons. It would have helped if the main characters were at all likable, but they are selfish, hurtful, and narrow-sighted. Further, the "retribution" that the villain wants to enact seems so ridiculous given the weight of his grievance. It's not "because the government killed my family and covered it up, I have to bring those responsible to justice," it's more, "because so many athletes without bionics had to compete against athletes with bionics, I need to murder tons of people." It all just doesn't make that much sense.