Its weird to have a feeling that a movie didnt let you down but in ways it actually did but you still like it, its a very in between specially with how this movie ends, its like most of the movies I have been watching lately fall into similar areas but I guess for the most part we wont like or rate everything we watch an 8 and above. I was told it had a feeling of last Predator movie and in a way it does because of the main villain, it is a completely new story that basically feels like a mashup of Predator and Independence Day but without the cool characters or those dope one liners we usually get, Alan Ritchson is the lead and he is playing this guy with a bum leg and a serious case of PTSD after watching his brother die, and man he is just this massive wall of muscle who looks like he eats large children to stay that big, but he actually does a solid job with the physicality of the role, the movie builds the story of a group of soldiers during a final training exercise in the woods of Georgia, it starts with a completely new scene where they are all just trying to survive the mud and the rain, and for the first thirty minutes I was actually locked in because the training scenes feels like some good old fashioned army movies where they all get beat down to hell by their training, it is legit intense watching these guys crawl through the dirt while a drill sergeant screams in their faces, but then an actual alien drops from the sky to start a massacre and everything goes to hell real quick although it still feels like they didnt provide enough context about his Alies, I hope they do come up with a sequel. I was not expecting this after all the drama of the opening because the shift from a military drama to a sci fi horror happens so fast you do not even have time to grab your popcorn, it is a weird mix that almost works if you do not think about the science part too much.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15940132/
- Platform: NETFLIX
[Source](https://www.netflix.com/title/81768525/)
The problem is that the machine is the most boring part because it just looks like a ripped off robot from Robocop that goes around the woods shooting at anything that moves almost like it doesnt have any real purpose and the design of the robot itself is trash compared to the classic movie monsters we grew up watching becuase the approach is like a mech tank style so even though it was very fast it doesnt look like so, looks very strange without a head or arms instead its just a torso with legs with some glowing red lights to make it look scary, it does feel menacing though so there is that balance I was talking about at first doesnt look cool but looks and proves it can fuck you up, but initially it just moves so slow that you wonder how any of these elite soldiers are actually getting caught by it, since the soldiers only have blanks for their guns they have to spend the whole movie running away and rolling down hills, which sounds like it would be a complete waste of time but the gore hits hard when guys start getting their limbs blown off or impaled by trees, the movie even reminds me at Lone Survivor when they start rolling down the hills and getting all beat up. The cast still made it watchable because they are all screaming for their lives in a way that feels pretty real, Ritchson spends half the movie carrying people on his back because he is the only one who can actually stand up to this thing and his character story about wanting to save everyone since he could not save his brother is the only thing that gives the movie any kind of heart, even if it is a bit thick with the cheese, it is one of those times where the lead actor is way better than the material he was given to work with.
Dennis Quaid shows up for a tiny five minute paycheck just to get his face on the poster as an Admiral who sits in a dark room looking at computer screens and he looks like he would rather be anywhere else on planet earth than on this set, his role is basically just to explain the mystery through a big info dump at the end that makes zero sense, they try to say this machine is a biological weapon from another world but it just feels like they are making it up as they go along to fill the time, everything about it felt rushed when they try to connect the dots between the military training and the alien arrival, you could see where things were heading from miles away because the script is thin as hell and follows the same pattern as every other Netflix mid movie we have seen in the last few years, for me it would be better if they just drop you into the war zone it was without any context and then try to build up some context towards the end like glue it all together so it felt more earn, it is just look like the hero has to find his inner strength to blow up the big bad robot with a grenade or something equally basic, at the end everything tries to come together but the logic falls apart because if this thing is so advanced why can it be defeated by a guy with a bad knee and a truck, and dont give me the science class leason because certainly it didnt work since so far he has been the only one to beat one of this machines without any weapons, it is one of those situations where you have to leave your brain at the door to enjoy the explosions.
When thinking back on this movie I feel disappointed because the first half had so much potential to be a legit survival story in the woods but it turns into a boring crawl through the bushes once the robot starts chasing them around in circles, they had a decent budget around $80 Million and some good actors but the robot looks so weightless and also makes me think this robot has to be a low level warrior, this cant be the final booss type of robot, after all it ruins the tension they worked so hard to build in the beginning, the pacing feels all over the place with some scenes dragging on forever while the actual action happens in short bursts that are over before you can even see who got killed, it is one of those movies that exists for a weekend and then you forget it to never watch again unless they drop the sequel. Im not so sure if to call it slop because while they were focus on the entire army guy wanting to get his batch to become a Ranger and move on was a very cool movie, but the combo of that side of the story and then the drastic shift into the robot make it just perfect if you are bored out of your mind on a Sunday afternoon and just want to see some shit explode while you scroll on your phone or have the movie rolling on your second monitor, but it does not have that spark that makes you want to talk about it with your friends at work the next day, it is a total letdown considering how much I like Ritchson in Reacher, he deserves a better movie than this one.
At the end of the day it is a total Netflix mid movie that exists just to fill a content quota and while it has some dope gore and a few solid moments of Ritchson being a badass, it is just good enough for a one time watch when you have nothing else to do, I am giving it a 7.5 out of 10 because it is not a complete waste of time even if the ending is total nonsense and the robot looks like a cheap toy, take in consideration that the first half of the movie was cool even when they getting chase by the robot but then focus on the survival aspect like when they fall into the river the movie turns interesting again, just a bunch of ups and downs. Would I recommend it? yes sure why not, its not the worst movie I have evern seen besides its on Netflix the most popular streaming service so yeah sure go watch it. I wanted to love it because the trailer looked dope but the execution just was not there, they sell you the army guy movie trying to survive well enough to get you hook, it is sad because the idea of soldiers with blanks fighting a real killer is actually a cool idea that a better writer could have turned into a banger but here it just feels like they are not really trying to do anything new and dont get me started on the "feelings" part because lucky they only did this once when one of the soldiers tell Ritchson "we are not like you, we are humans, we got feelings" what kind of bullshit was that??, honestly only watch this if you are a massive fan of the Ritchson.
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