User reviews

Men against Fire is a classic episode of Black Mirror, it has so many things going for it, but for me, it's the what if scenario posed by the episode that's most impactful. It asks the terrifying question, what if the Military could command what soldiers saw? What if they had the ability to remove free will. It is a terrifying scenario, removing conscience from the military.

Malachi Kirby and Michael Kelly are both incredible, Kirby injects a life, a compassion and a sense of awareness into his performance, he in particular was superb.

Easy to follow, despite dealing with complex subjects, it never feels too clever for its own good. Very well made indeed, superb production values, as always.

Powerful, hard hitting drama 9/10.

We all have different expectations of what an episode of Black Mirror should be, but this, for me, is it. The indirect exposure to the social ills that plague us, to the systematic exploitation of our brothers and sisters, to the possible disastrous effects of future technologies, to the brutal efficacy with which we are controlled.

This episode is brilliantly acted, written and directed. It takes you into the character's mind and you see and hear only what they know. We mostly look through the lens of our own beliefs and view points, and reject the others. And you, along with the main character, slowly stumble upon the truth, which can only be established by considering everything. You will slowly begin to realize what is truly happening here, and you couldn't help but praise the ingenuity with which this was done.

We as a species have always been invested in making progress, increasing our knowledge, and making ourselves smart. A soundproof way to doing that is by eliminating genes that inhibit us, and helping the propagation of only those genes which help us. This has been a key propaganda issue in the 20th century and this century and is very likely to be the focus as we make progress in DNA mapping and genetic engineering. Just as we have designed dogs to be cute, playful and loyal by killing those which lack these qualities, we can design our future population too. To do that we need to have control over the populace and have means to control them, you need to have enough power and sway to contain any rebellious elements. The episode conveys this effortlessly, not once appearing to try to hard.

A true Black Mirror episode. I only wish the ending scene with Doug could have been better executed.

To me, this episode felt more like an episode of Black Mirror than any other this season. The thing I like most about this series is the way that it makes me ask myself ethical questions that I never would have thought about otherwise while I'm watching. It brings up the topic of morality relative to near future technology. That is what has been in some ways lacking from this season... until this episode. Admittedly, the episode is a little bit heavy-handed at times, a little predictable at others. But at least it was working with big ideas, putting them out there, and making me think. For that reason and that reason alone, I liked it more than any other this season.

The episode follows future soldiers as they hunt down and kill genetically inferior "roaches" in some part of Europe. The subjects of eugenics, consent, and propaganda in the modern age are all brought into question by the episode.

This episode was fantastic. The acting was amazing, the best and most engaging I've seen yet in black mirror (I watched S1, S2 and a couple of episodes from S3 and S4). But the most interesting part was the plot. The subject is more relevant then ever. Watch this one, don't be alarmed by the negative reviews as I'll explain next!

Of the negative reviews I read here one says it should have been about religious brainwashing as that has happened before. You have got the wrong series buddy, black mirror is a look into the future. And in the current age of splinternet bubbles, fake news and in the (not too distant) future AI and nueralink-type developments this topic is exceptionally up to date and this episode is extremely relevant.

Of the other negative reviews most of them say this premise has been done in a show called the outer limits, which is why they gave it a low rating. What nonsensical reasoning, everything has been done before. I don't know why you guys bothered to write a review.

I had no idea what to expect from this episode. I was expecting people vs. zombies, but it was much more. The idea of seeing the enemy as "the other" makes it easy to kill. It is almost a reflection of what we are experiencing now. This person doesn't look like me, has a different religion, skin color, language or sexual or, therefore he is less human than me. We know, or should know, that is not the case. We are all humans. The story and lesson are thought provoking, and the acting by Malachi Kirby as Stripe was outstanding. After watching two disappointing episodes, Metalhead and Crocodile, Men Against Fire was a return to the classic episodes of Black Mirror.

I'm no stranger to series skewed towards irony and twists. I love Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, so I should have predicted what was coming here. But I was somewhat blindsided by this one. It fits in along with the overarching theme of technology being a double- edged sword, and if something looks feels and smells real, how can one tell what is real and what isn't? Almost like an existential Turing test for reality. This is a recurring theme in almost all Black Mirror episodes. The audience is again left questioning reality. But this particular episode kind of hits close to home. Especially given the events happening around the world nowadays. I can't say anymore without giving too much away. For any Twilight Zone fans out there, do yourself a solid and watch this episode.

I don't understand why this episode is so lowly rated. The episode made me think so much. And the ending, wow. While it's quite intense, very intense, I definitely recommend it to everyone just for the reflection alone.

I truly believe that the most money and direction in most political entities is to give carte blanche to something military. Since survival is the most basic human emotion, we tend to want anything that facilitates that. When we talk about the advancement of culture, education, agriculture, infrastructure, the amount of money given to these is piddly compared to the military. And I'm talking about most countries in the world, not just ours. Think of Syria and Russia and northern African nations. I believe that if the kind of technology existed that was portrayed in this episode, there would be a group of zealots that would embrace it lovingly. Get rid of inferiority in our genetic make-up. The "Roaches" are just people with imperfections (as we all have) like possible cancer. Anyway, this is a really disturbing episode because it is possible. Hitler used the same premises that these guys did. Throw in religion, which is equally dangerous because it preaches its own superiority, and you've got the seeds of the worst kind of world.

The episode begins rather strong. It made me interested in the protagonist and the overall arc. But they present too many clues for me to be surprised by the twists.

The content feels spoon-fed rather than particularly intriguing. And they had a lot of ideas for this episode where the presentation could have been more mysterious. But instead it feels slow, obvious and in the end, over-the-top vindictive and cruel. I know to not expect a fun or light topic for this series. But this one took some ideas which were potentially believable with improved technology and stretched them unnecessarily to where the antagonist became unbelievably cruel for the sake of exploring how evil some technology could become. Instead the goal should be creating an engrossing story related to the potential issues of technology. This one wallows in the issues too much. Nose dive was similar.

And that is what is so upsetting. In both episodes the stories have some good ideas, great acting, great sets and great costumes, but the stories aren't written in a particularly strong way to get the most out of the ideas. The ideas and work come off like a missed opportunity.

This is a deep episode that questions the morality of war, and whether a war can be a "good one". This episode doesn't rank highly amongst the Black Mirror fans, but it has a very serious tone that seeks to get the audience pondering about how the good guys see the bad ones. What is right? What is wrong? What are the grey areas?

Some of the reviewers here give bad reviews because they believe it's been done in the series called the outer limits, but that's a terrible reason as to rate this lowly, I loved every bit of the execution and I was on the edge of my seat, it's brilliant and no question about it if you objectively rate it.

A lot of people are frowning upon latest season. I don't see anything wrong with this season. I have found only one weak episode Playtest because of really weak ending. Other episodes are just mesmerizing and tells most horrific truth about life in best artistic way possible. I loved Men against Fire, which draws most realistic parallel between blindness and ruthlessness of war in very subtle way. I don't want to spoil it for others but just watch this season without giving much thoughts to previous seasons. My personal best till date is "San Junipero". I am really not sure, why people are agonizing against Netflix. Netflix is keeping these indie dramas alive in this retarded, half-witted sitcom sphere of Arrow, Person of Interest or Quantico s***.

I find it interesting how everyone likes or dislikes different Black Mirror episodes in different proportions. A great deal of your opinion of an episode has to do with personal experiences and philosophies, a successful echo of the use of "Mirror" in the title.

Men Against Fire was really testing my patience for the first thirty minutes, the first time I had experienced agitation with an episode of the series. We have already seen so many of these themes with "History of You" and "Playtest" that the main character's fascination with the technology around him was belaboring any point that needed to be made. However, the episode did a fantastic job of bringing it all together and causing the viewer to re-examine previous events, a la "Shut Up and Dance". With a clever turn of events, all of the reasoning was explained to my satisfaction. Another solid theme explored by Season 3.

I liked the military environment. Plus, unlike in other previous Season 3 episodes (except for Nosedive) the technology is crucial point of the story. Topic of propaganda and its spread via technology is, in today's "post-factual" times, highly relevant. The motive of eugenics is also up for discussion. Despite weaker last act it's stadnard BM episode.