richard-fieldhouse

With good actors and impressive special effects, what could possibly go wrong?

Plenty, as it turns out. While many reviewers here are impressing with their knowledge of films like Alien and too many others to mention I'm not sure this film belongs in such company. I watched it a few years back when the effects were sufficient to carry the thinness of the plot. Not this time.

A team of space rescuers is sent on a mysterious mission with Sam Neill to keep them company. Turns out he knows plenty about the monster ship that's turned up years after its disappearence. A team ventures on board and it's here that they start to draw their inspiration from Scooby-doo by...

splitting up.

They're faced with many different Monsters from the Id. (Nearly referenced another, better film there.) Sometimes they survive their encounters with the monsters.. And sometimes they don't.

Apparently about half an hour of pure gore and gruesomeness was cut from the runtime but what's left certainly isn't family friendly.

So then they recuperate from the monster encounter for about five minutes then their inner Velma and Fred speak up..

"Let's split up."

And so it goes. On and.. On.

4/10. We didn't last, even the relatively modest runtime. Suggest you maybe don't bother.

When is a real and messy war not so real? Answer: when it's presented as an android uprising.

So in the fantasy world that this film inhabits, just after teenager Georgia (Chloe Grace Moretz) discovers that she's pregnant with Sam's child, domestic androids suddenly turn on their masters and civilisation is plunged into near instant disarray. Despite her huge doubts about Sam (Algee Smith), the couple end up on a perilous journey to get to Boston where it's rumoured that families might be evacuated. Their shaky relationship actually grows stronger.

As the film moves towards its central dilemma, you might recall that a very similar scenario played out for real during the messy evacuation from Kabul last year. Many of the couple's discussions on their journey begin to make more sense. (At least up until a rather confusing last five minutes.)

Does it work replacing a hot and nightmarish reality with a cold and frequently rain-soaked fantasy? In brief, not very well. The plot that we end up with is full of holes and inconsistencies right from the start. Are the androids indistinguishable from humans or not? Is Georgia incapacitated by her pregnancy? In both cases, the answer is sometimes yes; sometimes no. In places the film has a distinctly low-budget feel, but its worst failing is actually a lack of pace.

So it's an alternative view on a real-world moral dilemma. But is it interesting enough? Very marginal, hence 6/10.

There's a stellar cast, a traditionally silly, far-fetched plot (a cross between the Pink Panther and Indiana Jones), action, not overmuch violence, exotic locations... What could go wrong?

Well something doesn't just quite work. Is it the rather forgettable soundtrack (despite a famous cameo singer)? Is it the writing, the direction, the editing? Is it that the whole thing was put together working within covid restrictions?

Well, not surprisingly, I guess it's a little of all these. Though the pace, the one-liners and the sight gags are mostly pretty good.

I think the biggest problem is at the core of the plot. It's just a bit too silly, too soon and with a few too many twists.

We start with two art thieves - Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot - and Dwane Johnson, an "FBI profiler". They're variously after each other and three golden eggs that were gifted to Cleopatra and that are rumoured to be in Egypt, Italy, Germany, Argentina... etc, etc, etc. You get the idea. (I do hope the slightly flat end result is not because we've become just a bit too familiar with these escapist fantasies in general.)

Perhaps we really should be identifying with just one lead (Ryan Reynolds?) but the focus is split between three, plus, initially, Ritu Arya as the Interpol agent. We really are missing the strong lead role - the actual Indiana Jones, the Inspector Clouseau or the James Bond.

It's an enjoyable caper, though, if you don't go in expecting too much. 6.5/10.