“Your being manipulated.”

That misspelled slogan emblazoned on the truck of Eddington Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) sums up Ari Aster’s new movie in a nutshell: As America was seized by conspiracy theories and paranoia in the early, isolating days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we all got a little dumber. Attention spans shortened and extreme views emerged from the fray. Worse yet, those extreme opinions started to make major inroads for many in power. But does Eddington, Aster’s contemporary Western that morphs into a dark and twisted conspiracy thriller, actually have much to say about the dumbing down of America beyond that? Not really.

Eddington is Aster’s follow-up to Beau is Afraid, and like his divisive absurd comedy, it features yet another glimpse into the director’s disturbed mind. But unlike the audacious surrealism of his 2023 film — which put us at a necessary distance with its anxious hero (also played by Phoenix) — Eddington is a little too eager to buy into the conspiracy theories it’s supposedly satirizing. The result is a shallow, mean-spirited thriller that takes “internet brainrot” too far.

Video games love a likeable hero. If you’re going to be spending dozens of hours unraveling their stories, it makes sense that you’d want a protagonist you can look up to. You don’t play as a lot of characters who skip out on their families when they need them and only begrudgingly attend their own mother’s funeral, which is just one way a new point-and-click adventure on PC feels like nothing else I’ve ever played.

The Drifter got a July 17 release date earlier this year, a mere eight years after its development began. That’s a long time for any game to spend in the oven, but it’s clearly paid off for developer Powerhoof, as The Drifter is a phenomenal, unique adventure that’s wriggled its way deep into my brain since I first started playing.