Madonna – Secret Project Revolution

After months of snippets and teasers, it’s finally out. The Toronto Star reviews:

The film, co-created with Steven Klein, runs 17 minutes and features Madonna playing both a prisoner and a jailer (and sometimes looking like Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS) being thrown into a cell, then shooting fellow decoratively draped prisoners. There’s some beautiful dancing and it’s all in black and white, which signals how SERIOUS she is about saving the world. As the good-looking violence happens on the screen, Madonna says things like, “Democracy doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Freedom of expression sounds like a catch phrase” and “This will be the revolution of thinking for yourself. Of having your own opinion.” She lost me when she spat “burn, baby burn” and a baby stroller spontaneously caught fire. Madonna has been very vocal in, for example, her support of the members of Russia’s Pussy Riot and her heart is probably in the right place. Unfortunately, this comes across as a blend of well-meaning high school theatre, un-scintillating bondage and the camera lingering unrelentingly on, yes, Madonna.