Sacrifice is part satire, part farce, and part something I – nor the movie itself – can quite a put a finger on. It's too long, that much is true, and the humor is so broad it's a miracle even some of the jokes land.

And yet, despite all that, I had fun with Sacrifice. It made me laugh more than once, and I was never bored, despite the lengthy runtime. Which is more than I can say for some other smug satires about rich people ruining the very things they claim to protect. (I'm looking at you, Triangle of Sadness.)

Part of why Sacrifice works even in fits and starts is thanks to its game cast. The main trio: Chris Evans, Vincent Cassel, and Anya Taylor-Joy, are a hoot. Cassel plays a Jeff Bezos -lite with delightfully petty venom, spewing dated insults at anyone who dares cross his path. Evans, dedicated to a post-Captain America career playing dickheads of varying extremes, is hilarious as the clueless and deeply insecure hero chosen by the cultists as sacrifice. They're led by Taylor-Joy, who brings unexpected nuance to an underwritten part.

The plot revolves around a distasteful vanity party, thrown together by the wealthy elite to celebrate their "efforts" to stop climate change. Taylor-Joy's group of eco-warriors/cultists show up, kidnap the lot, and demand three chosen sacrifices for the nearby erupting volcano. Otherwise, according to the prophecy, the world will end in two days.

For most of the film, it's entirely unclear if there really is a threat or not, and the film is never better than when director Romain Gavras plays with that expectation. It's fun watching certainty swing into disbelief and back again, and each of the cast members has their moment to shine in this regard.

But by the time we reach the second half of the picture, Gavras can't seem to decide what he's satirizing anymore. The film plays itself surprisingly straight, and the weirdness ramps down considerably from the initial madness. After Evans has his drug-fueled nightmare, it's almost like we're in a different movie altogether. There's also a weird detour involving John Malkovich that, while his presence is always a bonus, feels superfluous and half-baked.

Which isn't to say it's bad – it's just on the right side of odd for that – but it does get tedious. By the time the climax comes around, it's so inconsequential and off-key that it prompted someone in the theater to loudly proclaim: "Seriously?!"

Despite this, it's thanks to a game Evans, Taylor Joy, and Cassel that Sacrifice remains so watchable. Even Salma Hayek is fun, though I have no idea what her part in all this is supposed to be. Like many other things in the film, she looks gorgeous and is always a welcome presence. But that's all she does; she's just there.

I just don't know what the director, writer, or producers were thinking when they put everything together. I'm not sure they do, either.