Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Netflix Original: Spectral (2016) TV-14

A unit of soldiers in a war-torn country start falling prey to an enemy they can't see and can't combat with conventional weapons.  It takes a scientist from DARPA (James Badge Dale, Rubicon) and a CIA analyst (Emily Mortimer, Shutter Island) to go in and assess the situation, identify the enemy, and stop it before it spreads beyond the confines of the battlefield.

Soldiers just keeping the peace for America start getting wiped out by what appears to be ghosts of the dead.  They can't fight them, they can't run from them, and can't hide from something that can walk through walls.  So they bring in the scientist that helped them create the technology that allowed them to see this spectral enemy in the first place in an attempt to isolate and contain the threat.  They ended up facing a force that they were not ready to combat by conventional means.

This is a beautifully shot and produced movie.  The costuming, acting, and effects are all top-notch, and it's stunning to watch.  Unfortunately in the last half hour, I found my interest fading.  Even the cinematography couldn't keep me watching, which was actually great for my knitting... I got several inches of my hat done for a Christmas gift.

I think the problem was that we just kept hitting high points, climaxes, with characters falling left and right, and by the time you get down to the last twenty minutes, you just really don't care anymore what happens with these people, or what's causing the specters.  Like shell shock, you're just numb and waiting for it to be over.

One eyeroll at the end.  These two people suddenly have these big emotions that seem to come from nowhere.  Two holy crap moments because the specters are badass killing machines.  I dropped my needles twice in the middle for combat scenes that were frenetic and stylistic, but brutal.  Not a lot of blood, though, if that's a concern.

Three and a half stars.  It would have been higher but like I said, by the last half hour I was saying "Why aren't we done with this yet?". 

No comments:

Post a Comment