It is 1917, WWI, trench warfare continues between the English and the Germans in the flatlands of northern France. Lance corporal Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) is ordered to deliver a letter to the front-line warning of a German ambush they are about to run into and 1600 lives are at risk, including Blake’s brother’s. To deliver this message he has to cross the occupied French countryside but he is assured the Germans have already retreated as part of their ambush plan.
The movie takes us back to the early 1960s when Ford Motor Company had a reliable image, but sales and profits were slumping a bit – the ‘new generation’ wasn’t looking for reliable cars, they wanted something more fun, more sexy, more exciting…
When you find out that a movie is directed by Michael Bay, you know you are in for a high octane action flick with explosions… lots of explosions… And when you are going to see a Ryan Reynolds movie, you know you can expect a special kind of humour – mischievous is one way to describe it maybe. So what do you get when these two work together? An all ‘new kind of action hero’ movie apparently. I guess that is a fair description; unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily make it any good.
A movie poster headlining Scorsese, De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci means you instantly know you are in for a mobster movie. How different from other mafia movies it is though. Instead of a thrill ride or glorification, we experience the mundanity, if you will, of everyday violence, murder, extortion, bribery, fraud and a variety of other felonies through the eyes and memories of the Irishman. A character study reflecting on life and loyalties, loss and loneliness, and pain and penance.
‘A group of strangers find themselves locked in a confined space together and hope to puzzle their way out in order to survive’ is not exactly a new premise. Decent examples include Cube, which managed to get three movies out of the concept (only the first one is good), and Saw, which is is up to number eight in the franchise (with a re-boot on the way, as the franchise couldn’t keep living up to its first instalment either).
We never find out why or how, but the world’s population has been wiped out entirely and turned the planet into a poisonous wasteland. Apparently, some of humanity had anticipated this and created a a facility that houses thousands of embryos to repopulate earth with. This facility is run by an Articial Intelligence, which presents itself as a robot called Mother (voiced by Rose Byrne). She raises a single embryo, Daughter (Clara Rugaard), to adulthood, teaching and testing her along the way.
We have seen quite a few movies set in a bleak dystopian future in recent times. Captive State sees the population living in a surveillance state following an alien invasion that took place a decade ago, resulting in the world’s governments surrendering to these aliens who now deplete the planet of its resources. The aliens are therefore now called the Legislators, but they are rarely seen – they let earth’s governments run the show for them as long as they get the resources they want and smack down hard on any rebellion or resistance.
Man vs Frozen Wilderness has been done before of course. Leonardo di Caprio tries to survive the South Dakotan winter, and bears, in The Revenant; Liam Neeson fights the Alaskan cold, and wolves, in The Grey; we don’t exactly know where Mads Mikkelsen is, but he is trying to survive the cold, and polar bears, somewhere in the Arctic circle.
Dad ‘Rowdy’ Ricky (Nick Frost) ran the World Association of Wrestling and was one of the biggest names in UK wrestling, his wife Julia (Lena Heady) was also a wrestler. They raised their three kids to become professional wrestlers as well. The oldest, Roy aka Zebra Kid, was the least successful and, like his father before him, ended up in prison early in his adult life. The other two, Zak (Jack Lowden) aka Zak Zodiac, and Saraya (Florence Pugh) aka Britani, had great promise. Since the UK wrestlings scene had little prospects of a financial future, the family set their sights on the US.
Neeson plays Nels Coxman, a snowplough driver who loses his son to a drug overdose. Convinced his son wasn’t a druggie, Coxman sets out to find out what happened and soon finds himself in a world of drugs, turf wars, and revenge. He takes no prisoners and the body count steadily increases as the plot thickens and bad guy The Viking (Tom Bateman) turns up the heat to find him.