Boots Riley is as subtle as a cactus is soft, but sometimes artists who back down to the rules of subtlety are cowards. Both his previous debut feature Sorry to Bother You, his Amazon Prime series I’m A Virgo, and now his latest film I Love Boosters are all projects that scream loud and proud about the ways society is constantly tipping the scale of power in favor of the already-fortunates and leaving the rest to fend for themselves. As a life-long activist, Riley’s innovative displays of protest on the streets have been expertly channeled into equally thunderous and angry cinematic pleas for fair equality. Heavy are they in terms of expression, yet somehow still raucously fun in execution, Riley’s explosion of surrealist world-building maximalism knows how to speak its mind while also being an adrenaline shot of uproarious, endless imagination.

Keke Palmer stars as Corvette, a poor, aspiring fashion designer, living in the San Fransisco Bay area, who leads a Robin Hood-like group called The Velvet Gang with friends Sade (Naomi Ackie), Mariah (Taylour Paige), and Violeta (Eiza Gonzales). Working minimum wage and barely surviving off what little money they have, Corvette and her team of “boosters” target clothing boutique Metro Design, an always-up-to-date retail store managed by the snooty, in-vogue snob Grayson (Will Poulter) and owned by mega-famous fashion empress Christie Smith (Demi Moore). Their “3-F” mission: Fashion Foward Philanthropy: AKA, steal every item of clothing clean off the rack and sell it for dirt cheap in the neighborhood.

At first their many missions are completed by the skin of their teeth: Corvette stuffing every outfit between every inch of skin under their clothes until they waddle out looking like post-blueberry chewing gum Violet Beauregard or Sade holding her breath until she appears “light-skinned”, complete with a literal different face as to not be recognized or suspected. Corvette is as much a fan of Christie Smith’s artistic influence as she is determined to take her down with the super-human speed and genius that only makes sense within this carnival-version of reality Boots Riley has concocted. As Christie’s grip tightens around their surroundings, The Velvet Gang accept the convenient help of Jianhu (Poppy Liu), a thief who has acquired a pair of particular transportation devices to both take down Smith’s empire and hopefully radicalize others in their attempt for justice over unfair working conditions and low pay.

It seems all of the color that many complain has been drained from modern filmmaking has been conserved for Boots Riley to explode all over his sets and actors like a paint cannon. The eye-popping visual look of I Love Boosters demands end-of-the-year recognition with its bold showcase of explosive monochromatic euphoria in every frame. Every single outfit, accessory, hairstyle, and makeup choice is a truly demented Met Gala exhibit of madness, artistic delirium that will melt your eyeballs but leave you begging to see more. Every second of Riley’s second film is chock-full of acid-laced originality, like if Henry Selick directed The Devil Wears Prada or the Anna Wintour-version of Pee Wee’s Playhouse. It’s razor sharp humor and frenetic pace impressively keep you engaged from start to finish, even when all the narrative chaos can feel unrelenting. Riley isn’t confined to anything storytelling-wise, zigging at every zag and yet still keeps his clear point about soul-sucking, consumerist capitalism firmly in the driver’s seat.

The cast is absolutely stacked, even a few more surprises than much advertising has revealed, and it is a testament to Riley’s brilliance behind the camera that amasses so many artists in the film industry to want to work with him and execute his gonzo vision. A few subplots feel less explored than others, sometimes even feeling like plot points from a completely different Boots Riley film forced into this narrative, but Riley is the type of filmmaker who should at this point have the extensive filmography of a visionary like Tim Burton, yet his completed works remain so far just these few. Still, each one is so audacious, we’re lucky to get them at all. I Love Boosters is a film with a megaphone in its hand, both in its themes and in its extravagant appearance, but its non-stop inventiveness is still just so alluring and impressive, it’s impossible not to continuously appreciate the bold swings or howl at the hallucinatory mania. A hilariously distorted funhouse mirror to our own hopelessly consumerist world.