Netflix released episode number 00 from their, long waited, season 5 of their original series ” Black Mirror” last December. the episode was named “Bandersnatch” and it came in the form of an interactive movie where the audience gets to ” choose their own adventure”.
The next binge-watching series, for people who haven’t yet watched it, should be “Black Mirror”. the show Black Mirror examines modern society, particularly with regard to the unanticipated consequences of new technologies. And “Bandersnatch” mixes the experience of watching a movie about new technologies while using new technology to interact with the movie.
The movie is a psychological thriller genre and the rating for the film is “TV-MA’’ which means the film is not suitable for people under 15.
plot
In England in July 1984, young programmer Stefan Butler (Fionn Whitehead) dreams of adopting a “choose your own adventure” book called Bandersnatch by tragic writer Jerome F. Davies into what he hopes will be a revolutionary adventure video game
. The game involves traversing a graphical maze of corridors while avoiding a creature called Pax, and at times making choices by an on-screen instruction. Butler produces the game for video game company Tuckersoft, which is run by Mohan Thakur (Asim Chaudhry) and employs the famous game creator Colin Ritman (Will Poulter).
Butler is given the choice of accepting or rejecting help from the company in developing the game. after choosing to accept the offer BUtler realises it’s big pressure on him. Butler then considers trying again, and the film returns to the day of the offer, the viewer is given the same choice.

Butler choosing to accept or reject the offer, photo retrived from here .
Movie review:
The idea of the film as an interactive ” choose your own adventure” movie was new and exciting for many people.
After watching the movie, the excitement turns into astonishment and confusion. a lot of questions come to the mind and exclamation marks rise.
the film has more than five endings, which each one of them is very different than the other depending on the viewer’s choices. some of them are self-explanatory but many of them are confusing and can be translated and understood many ways.
after watching the first ending, Netflix will give you the option to go back to certain options so that the viewer can change their chosen path, they chose before, and try new paths.
there are some choices that are “Wrong”, like the choice of choosing to accept the offer of developing the game. when choosing this path Colin Ritman will say:
After showing you how does this path end it will redirect you back to the scene where you choose to either accept or decline the offer again and you are expected to choose to decline the offer, since accepting was the wrong path,.
some other choices that were given to the viewer didn’t have any significant change, whether you chose any of them nothing would have changed. like when they give you the choice between ” sugar puffs” or ” Frosties” for breakfast, either one wouldn’t matter.
during the film and while watching the viewer might feel like they are in a ” feelings roller coaster” where they are not sure about how and what to feel towards many of the characters as the characters do different things and have different reactions in each path.
It’s hard to decide whether you love or hate, trust or are suspicious of a certain character because in each plot they are different.
The movie had a strong cinema effect, the music was well fit with every situation. The lighting and colors were also very well suited with the time theme that the movie is set in “1989”. The clothing and even the street view were also suited with the time frame that the movie is set in.
The music effect and soundtracks during the whole film fit very well with every situation and helped hype the viewer up when necessary, make the viewer excited or even make them scared sometimes.
https://soundcloud.com/sodern/black-mirror-bandersnatch-soundtrack-by-various-artists
The movie was a good start to the “choose your own adventure” type of movies and it was well made, directed and produced. Although some drawbacks that some people might see, the overall experience was new and exciting to watch.















