There’s a cinematic trend so predictable now that I’ve started making a bingo card: Pedro Pascal is cast in every movie, often in roles that don’t need him, and the rest of the film’s burden collapses under his fan service. Materialists (2025) is a textbook example. A movie with ambition—money, greed, power—but executed so lifelessly that not even Pedro’s face can drag it out of the mud. And when your co-star, Dakota Johnson, acts like she’s allergic to emotion, you end up with a film that looks like it was assembled out of obligation, not passion.
Pedro Pascal: the Overused Ornament
I like Pedro Pascal. I respect what he’s done. But there’s a breaking point. Pascal is in everything now. Seriously—if you scroll streaming services these days, he’s a cameo in your coffee break series. In Materialists, his character is supposed to be cunning, charismatic, morally ambiguous—but the script gives him zero room to breathe. He’s stuck delivering lines like a voice assistant turned actor. Every time the camera lingers on him, you feel the film saying: “Hey, look, Pedro!”
He’s a walking brand plug, not a character. And that’s the problem: when a film leans so hard on star wattage, it forgets building the world around them. The charisma becomes the scaffolding, without any structure underneath.
Dakota Johnson: Flatline in Progress
Dakota Johnson, on the other hand, gives what might be the most confusing “performance” I’ve seen all year. She plays the idealist materialist (because irony, I guess), someone meant to navigate moral dilemmas and have emotional conflicts. Instead, she’s a background hum—a voice on hold. Her lines feel like they were written by someone who forgot to give her a soul. There are moments she should break—anger, betrayal, confusion—but nothing lands. Every expression is the same: a mild squint, a half-baked sigh, like she’s stuck in a loop of “mild disappointment with life.” It’s not bad acting; it’s the absence of acting.
Chris Evans Plays It Safe — And That’s the Problem
Chris Evans shows up as John Pitts, Lucy’s charming-but-cautionary ex — a struggling actor and part-time caterer who’s as vanilla as a gluten-free cupcake. He’s supposed to represent the “authentic love” contrast to Pedro Pascal’s suave billionaire, but the film doesn’t give him enough edge to actually challenge that dynamic. Evans coasts through the role with that boy-next-door sincerity dialed up to 7, never quite reaching the emotional bite we’ve seen him pull off elsewhere. His chemistry with Dakota Johnson flickers, sure, but it’s more “muted comfort” than “electric connection.” Instead of being the guy you root for, John ends up feeling like a safe fallback — narratively and romantically. In a movie trying to dissect materialism, Evans’ character feels like an undercooked metaphor for emotional wholesomeness, rather than a fully formed human being.
Themes That Got Lost in the Static
The triangle between wealth, authenticity, and love is fertile ground. But Materialists approaches these themes as if they’re buzzwords. Money = status vs. emotional truth. Ambition vs. vulnerability. But it treats them superficially. Conversations about “value” sound academic, not lived. Our characters talk about love as a transaction more often than they feel it.
Materialists wants to be a scathing critique of capitalism, influencer culture, and the soul-sucking chase for wealth and status. It ends up being a surface-level Pinterest board of deep thoughts written by people who have never stepped outside of a SoHo brunch spot. The problem isn’t that the movie has nothing to say—it’s that it says it with the subtlety of a brick through a Tesla window. The entire script screams “Look how smart we are!” while forgetting that actual smart movies have characters you care about and stories that don’t collapse under their own bloated symbolism.
Why This Film Feels So Dead
- Plot holes you don’t care about: Contradictions in character motivations vanish whenever the script needs a punchline or a twist.
- Visual style with zero soul: Sleek sets, cold color palettes, cinematic wallpaper. You feel style, not substance.
- No emotional stakes: I never feared for these characters. I never invested. I just waited for it to end.
- Cliche after cliche: Betrayal. Gaslighting. Corporate espionage. Dated tropes dusted off with a filter.
JAY’S VERDICT
Materialists (2025) is a movie that believes casting big names is enough. It bets on celebrity pull instead of story pulling. It sacrifices character depth for market value. Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans are talented actors—but even they can’t salvage a movie that confuses Instagram quotes for philosophy and wealth porn for plot. Unless you’re a hardcore Pascal completionist or have a masochistic streak for watching wasted potential, give this one a skip.
If you watch it, do it with low expectations. Maybe mute half the time. And know this: brilliance doesn’t come from overlaying big names on thin scripts. It comes from flesh, flaws, risks—and Materialists refused to bleed.
