Metacritic reviews

2073 might sacrifice some eloquence to make its creative points, but the sincerity shines poignantly and powerfully. Let it be a galvanizing call to action.

Those who might be able to put aside despair and absorb this strictly as a work of persuasive rhetoric will be impressed with its intellectual scope, the economy of the storytelling in its fictional narrative, the bravura editing and visual panache as it builds a world full of dust, detritus and debased morals.

2073 is certainly a relevant shout of rage against the authoritarian forces despoiling our democracy and our environment – and the bland and complaisant naivety that’s letting it happen.

Does the alternation between documentary inserts and sci-fi superstructure work? Not always – more than once it’s a wrench to be dragged back to Ghost’s basement. But Kapadia and his co-scribe Tony Grisoni seem to understand that the pummelled audience can take only so much cinematic doomscrolling.

The documentary elements are fantastic; then we have to return to 2073, a time and place that simply lacks the story, conception, cinematography, and funding needed to make it work.

The conceit of a film as a warning from the future is a promising one, but 2073 feels more like political signalling for the present.