Review by severajaaho

Gareth Edward seems to be the guy for high sci-fi war films as he delivers another gritty war sci-fi war film after surprisingly dark and well made Star Wars spin-off Rogue One (which was actually better than the new trilogy that came out around the same time). This film however is set in an original setting where humans are waging a war against AI controlled androids after a brief nuclear war. It's an interesting combination of Vietnam war films, as the film is mainly set somewhere in East Asia and a lot of filming was also made there and the film deals a lot with justification of wars, Blade Runner with it's cyberpunk elements and futuristic Japanese inspired cities and technology and Avatar with it's depiction of technology with nature and the heavy use of CGI. In my opinion this film actually looks better than the mentioned Avatar and is visually more varied and intersting, though it also shares a lot of its faults. The film is structured more like a video game than a film with action being the main focus of the film with some slower world building "cutscenes" in between. Characters are not as annoying as in Avatar, but share their blank nature unfortunately. Dealing with the interesting themes the film presents is not given enough exposure due to prioritization of action and glitter over substance and despite the moving opening scene theres no emotional connection to any of the characthers. Visually it has some stunning scenes and especially the interaction between nature human culture and technology is beautifully illustrated here. I think this had the potential to be more memorable but as it is, it's a sci-fi action film that looks great but is a bit too long.