Captive State looked like it could be decent cinema, although it looked like it could be bad as well. I like science fiction, so I thought I would give this slightly dystopian science fiction film a go. It was tepid.
Gabriel Drummond (Ashton Sanders) was a child when the alien invasion began. His father, a Chicago police officer, attempted to get his family out of the city after the invasion began. They didn't make it. The effort cost the Drummond parents their lives. Gabriel and his brother Rafe (Jonathan Majors) had a surrogate father in William Mulligan (John Goodman) who was their father's partner at Chicago PD. Rafe became an insurgent, battling the alien invaders. He was believed to be killed during a failed uprising at Wicker Park. Gabriel still wants to escape Chicago. Mulligan has landed Gabriel a job at a data center where information is uploaded to the alien database. Gabriel's escape attempts are sidetracked when he becomes caught up in a subsequent plot to "light a match and start a war" to throw off the shackles of alien oppression. Gabriel's limited insight into the massive plot gives him a distorted view of the bigger picture, which indicates everything may not be what it appears to be.
Captive State draws it's historical inspiration from the Trojan War. Director Rupert Wyatt co-wrote the screenplay with Erica Beeney. Neither author has written anything of substance. The film has awkward pacing and editing that felt extremely choppy. I think a smoother film might have increased my enjoyment of this film. The main characters weren't bad, but there were quite a few characters who were important that we never really get to meet or understand. I felt a bit cheated by that as well. There just isn't a lot of meat on the bones here. The plot has some complexity, although the foreshadowing happened too soon, giving away the broader themes a bit too soon. But overall, the story had enough substance to build off. It just didn't execute well.
I am a fan of John Goodman. He is a solid actor and comedian. He transitioned to serious roles with little effort. He provided a good foundation in this film. I also liked Sanders, who seems to be getting plenty of work since Moonlight a couple of years ago. I also like Vera Farmiga, but felt she was very under-utilized in this film. The rest of the cast had roles that were never fully explored. There were quite a few people I wanted to know about. The girlfriend was a throw-away role that added nothing to the film. The friend was a throw-away. The plotters were all cardboard cut-outs. I could have done away with the girlfriend and friend in favor of more development of the other characters. The cast did a decent job with what they had to work with.
Captive State is rated PG-13 by the MPAA. With a teen (late teen) lead, this film was almost geared toward the same audiences that made films like Hunger Games popular. Not quite geared to that crew, but certainly courting them. The film avoids content that would get a stronger treatment by the MPAA. It was fairly tame. There was some gore and violence, but it was all contextual. There was a bit of tension around the violence and most tense (to me) during some backroom surgical procedures. The film should be fine for teens, tweens and older. Run time is one hour, 49 minutes.
I wanted to like Captive State. It had decent bones, but the meat wasn't there. The choppiness and sluggish pacing made this film forgettable. It didn't linger with me even for a moment. The film missed an opportunity to be decent science fiction. The lack of character development was the part that hurt this film the most. I would only modestly recommend this film. Just barely across the threshold of recommendation. 5.5/10.
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