Okay kids, today we’re gonna have a lesson on the meaning of “satire”. Oxford Dictionary defines satire as “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.” Why am I bringing up the literal definition? Well, because the meaning of the word has become rather strained in recent years. Many an online commenter will make an edgy joke and then defend it as satire, not being able to explain what exactly it is satirizing. The thing they tend to forget is that satire needs to have intention, lest it basically end up echoing whatever it is supposedly meant to be satirizing. Such is the case, from what I can tell, with Tubi’s original animated movie Millenial Hunter, starring Chris Parnell, chronicling one middle aged man’s quest to avenge the deaths of his family as he uncovered a country wide conspiracy tied to the generation of people known colloquially as “Millenials”, with their avocado toast, always being on their phones, posting stuff on their tik-snaps and their insta-books and GET OFF MY LAWN I CAN’T HEAR MATLOCK!Full disclosure, I was born in 1992, so I very much am in the age range to be identified as a Millenial, so there may be some bias here as I review this movie. That said, being born a “90’s Kid” is not some big part of my personality that I get defensive about, it’s just an environmental factor that impacted what resources were or weren’t available to me, what technology had advanced in my youth, what popular culture I was exposed to, etc. I just happened to be born at a certain point in time, not part of a cabal trying to bring down America. And I don’t even think this film’s writer, Sam Taggart, actually buys into these conspiracies or judgements of millennials. He probably just wanted to poke fun at all the “old man yells at cloud” humor ABOUT Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and even Gen Zers getting mad at millennials for whatever reason and then extrapolating that into an absurd situation. What IF millennials were actually trying to take over the country with all the weird and nonsensical things older folks say they’re doing? Probably would make for a funny movie, right?Well, no, not really. In fact, it was actually kinda boring. The whole thing is just one joke, “what if millennials really were doing what boomers said they were”, spread out over 70 minutes, and despite being shorter than most mainstream animated movies, it actually feels pretty long. Part of that is, like I said, the one joke, and how it makes just about the plot very predictable. Is it something related to millennials? Well, then it’s probably going to turn out to be evil, and if it’s not, it’s probably even headed and sensible. Another part is its main character, John, basically staying the same the whole time and never having to learn anything or grow as a person, even as he is wholesale slaughtering innocent people who have nothing to do with the people he’s fighting against. There seems to be a moment where he meets a millennial who seems to have similar hobbies and starts understanding the nuances, but instead he just parrots cliche phrases that make clear he’s brainwashed until he eventually snaps out of it and kills the guy. Even the way he saves his actually-alive son, who has himself been put under the antagonist’s control, is by actually revealing he’s not a millennial, but part of Gen Z because he was born in 1995.Again, I don’t think Sam Taggart actually hates millennials. I can’t seem to find his birthday, but he looks like he could be one himself. But this script had to be written in like 2018 because despite taking place in 2022, it is all out of whack. What boomers do you know who got MAD at younger people for working an unpaid internship? Or a millennial post-2020 who had something GOOD to say about Harry Potter? And you don’t have to look very far to find absolutely reprehensible millennials and Gen Zers, but to say it’s ONLY that generation who are awful people and everyone is fine is not only blatantly false, it’s also incredibly uncreative for a movie plot, even if it didn’t end with no clear self-awareness. This idea of an old man actively hunting millennials for their foibles does have comedic potential…as a series of five minute shorts, not a whole ass movie. Honestly, it’s such a tired idea that it’s one of the rare times I think a movie just shouldn’t have been made, even if it gets Chris Parnell a paycheck. Just avoid it altogether and, if you’re in my age group, get back to finding ways to pay off your unreasonably high student debt and rent as the world is engulfed in fire around you. And enjoy that avocado toast.