ExpendableMan

No Way Up is a movie with a cool premise but doesn't manage to effectively hit the mark. It's the story of a small group of plane crash survivors, stranded in the wreckage of a jet at the bottom of the ocean. The air is dwindling, there's little hope of rescue and the plane is gradually tilting forwards into an immense oceanic abyss. What's worse, there are sharks on the prowl and they're very hungry.

In the early going, there's a lot of promise. The characters are introduced effectively with minimal fuss, and the movie wastes no time getting to the action. Roughly twenty minutes in, a bird strike leads to a catastrophic engine failure and the plane is soon hurtling towards the waves. The crash scene is really good, outdoing a similar moment in this year's Society Of The Snow with raw intensity. People are sucked through a gaping hole into the void and crushed in their seats on impact, and there's a brief but effective moment where two characters exchange looks after seeing water outside the windows before the plane starts to sink.

From there though, No Way Up falters. The survivors are stuck in the rear of the plane as predators hunt, but the film never matches the excitement of the crash. It's not as claustrophobic as it should be, nor as tense. The cast try their best, with Sophie McIntosh's resourceful heroine and Phyllis Logan's hard-as-nails Grandma being particularly good, but it never manages to capitalise on its full potential. No Way Up is okay and it certainly kills a boring ninety minutes, but the premise is better than the film.

I've read that 'Rebel Moon' was intended to be a more adult-oriented alternative to 'Star Wars,' but there are a couple of problems with that. First, there's nothing to establish this as a "mature" movie beyond the presence of more violence, bad language and the suggestion of sexual assault. 'Rebel Moon' might be harder-edged than 'Star Wars,' but it's not a nuanced depiction of state and rebellion. The baddies are all despicable villains with no subtleties and the heroes are all well-meaning, aw-shucks underdogs who just want to live in peace. There's no questionable morality or blurring of the lines between heroes and villains; this is a very simplistic good vs evil universe. 'Rebel Moon' might have a high body count and some genuine nastiness in it, but there's never any question of who is doing the right thing. That's not mature writing, that's just adding blood to a children's story.

Secondly, we've already had an adult-orientated alternative to 'Star Wars,' and it was set in the actual 'Star Wars' universe. The 'Andor' TV series was a masterpiece; a multi-layered, intelligently written sci-fi series that rightfully, won critical plaudits and fan praise. It is an absolute must-see and one of the best depictions of fascism ever committed to film. In its wake, 'Rebel Moon' seems one-dimensional and old-fashioned. 'Andor' was "Star Wars for adults," but 'Rebel Moon' is "Star Wars for edgy teens."

Which is a bit of a shame because there are a few things to admire here. Visually, it's stunning. This is a universe of beautiful landscapes, vast spacecraft, creepy human/spider hybrids and all manner of eye-popping delights. 'Rebel Moon' doesn't engage the brain, but it does stimulate the optic nerve and it looks terrific. Plus, let's not ignore the fact it's an original intellectual property and that has to be celebrated. We're drowning in franchises right now, so to see a new one trying to poke through is worth championing. However, it also feels artificial. A lot of franchises spun out of movies that were written as one-offs, but found a huge audience and grew organically. This was written for the sake of being an extended multi-media project of films, novels, videogames and comics before it even earned a single fan.

In other words, not great. 'Rebel Moon' isn't boring, but it also isn't exciting or engaging to make a fuss over. It's just sort of, there. The fact it doesn't really have an ending is irritating as well. The entire two-hour runtime consists of them gathering up all the characters for the big adventure they'll have in the next film. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Zach Snyder typed "science fiction, I'm assembling a team, two hours," into an AI script generator and then filmed the results.