Magnolia PicturesJ.G. Ballard’s 1975 novel High-Rise is a grim exercise in deadpan dystopian fantasy, and director Ben Wheatley’s new movie is an ambitious attempt to bring it to life on the screen. The cast is certainly game—especially Tom Hiddleston, who’s supported by Sienna Miller, Jeremy Irons, and a feral Luke Evans. But Ballard’s story is so schematic that it starves us of surprise: we can see where it’s going, and we’re even shown where it will ultimately end, right at the beginning. The picture is all incident—this happens, that happens, more things happen. It’s chilly and brutal and increasingly, over the course of two long hours, monotonous, writes Kurt Loder.

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