The Strangest Sci-Fi Ever Made Involves Virtual Reality Kung Fu Batman, Jesus, And Pizza

By Robert Scucci
| Published 1 second ago

Have you ever seen a movie that’s so absolutely off-the-wall bonkers that you need to check your watch history the next day to make sure you didn’t dream it up? That’s how I feel about 2019’s Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway, an absurdist sci-fi spy comedy thriller with a neo-noir bent, and probably about 20 other genres that I’m not aware exist outside of this singular piece of media. We have villains wearing masks of historical figures in a VR world, mysterious mind-altering substances, James Bond plots, kung fu, a villain who’s a cross between Batman and Dolemite, and one man’s dream of one day opening a pizza restaurant and martial arts studio with his kickboxing wife.

Does any of that make sense? Because here’s what’s absolutely insane about this movie: it successfully tells a shockingly coherent story even though it’s all cosmic gumbo simmering impatiently in its own warped little cinematic Crock Pot.

If you’re looking for a covert-op adventure that barely clings to the fabric of reality and consciousness, yet somehow manages to pull itself back together, then Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway should be the next thing you watch on Tubi, where all the best movies you’ve never heard of live.

Psychobook, Soviets, And A Very Strange Batman

Oh boy, where do I begin? Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway centers on CIA Special Agent Gagano (Daniel Tadesse), a man who takes his work seriously, but not nearly as seriously as his love for pizza or his kickboxing wife, Malin (Gerda-Annette Allikas). Working alongside Agent Palmer Eldritch (Augustin Mateo), the two complete all of their missions, mostly against the Soviets, through VR devices that allow their avatars to get down to business without putting their physical bodies in harm’s way.

Problems arise when Gagano, who wants nothing more than to retire, open his own pizza place, and bankroll Malin’s dream of opening a kickboxing studio, gets trapped inside Psychobook, the cyber world in which they operate, after the system is hacked and compromised. Stuck between a virtual plane of existence and the real world, Gagano faces adversaries like the all-knowing Mr. Sophistication (Carlo Pironti), a multitude of kung fu hustlers, and, of course, the most menacing antagonist of all, Batfro (Solomon Tashe), who carries himself like Rudy Ray Moore’s Dolemite but, for reasons never fully explained, has his hero insignia blurred out whenever he appears on screen.

Complicating matters further is Malin’s affair with Palmer. While Agent Gagano’s love for Malin is intense and unbreakable, Malin, despite her unwavering reciprocation up this point, has seen what she needs to see to conclude that her husband is never returning from Psychobook, and this seems like the path of least resistance that will allow her to move on. Meanwhile, Joseph Stalin is hellbent on world domination, and a man who believes he’s Jesus Christ himself tries to enlighten Gagano with candy and a life-altering revelation that may change everything for the world-weary secret agent. In other words, Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway is total insanity, but in the best possible way.

Seriously, Give This One A Chance

In Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway, it’s not entirely clear whether the poor overdubbing was born out of necessity or a deliberate creative choice. I’m inclined to believe the latter because everything about this movie, from the set design and Stalin masks to the copyright workaround of having a man who’s clearly dressed as Batman with his insignia obscured just enough to keep the lawyers at bay, feels intentional. It may not seem that way while you’re working through the first two acts, but as more information is revealed, it all starts to make sense in context.

If you have the patience for this movie, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, and it’s beyond satisfying that a film released as recently as 2019 is taking so many wild creative swings. The whole thing feels like an alternate reality because it is an alternate reality, constantly making you question what belongs to this virtually constructed world and what belongs to the one Gagano so desperately wants to return to.

More importantly, as absurd as Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway may appear at a surface-level glance, everybody plays it as straight as possible. This isn’t to say that the production isn’t raw and clearly operating on a shoestring budget, but you rarely feel those limitations. Writer-director Miguel Llansó’s vision is so unhinged that it all feels like part of the packaging rather than a byproduct of limited resources.

JESUS SHOWS YOU THE WAY TO THE HIGHWAY SCORE

While it may not be for everybody, I’m glad movies like Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway exist because they demonstrate how much filmmakers can still innovate when they allow themselves to think outside the box (and this one is way out there). If you think you’re ready, you can stream this absurdist masterpiece for free on Tubi as of this writing. Whether you regret hitting ‘play’ is entirely up to you.