‘War Machine’ review: Alan Ritchson’s charisma can’t save this desperate sci-fi staple on Netflix

Action movies don’t get much more generic than the second Netflix film with the exact same title as the 2017 Brad Pitt starrer (good luck with your searches). War machine Stars Alan Ritchson The arrival Fame as the leader of a platoon of US Rangers who are down on their luck encountering a giant killer robot from outer space that appears to be his remnant. war Realms. The kind of mindless time-killer that will boost your testosterone level as you watch it, the film seems perfectly designed for those born too late to see the original. predatoror any of its versions in the eighties and nineties, during its theatrical performances.

Ritchson’s character, known only as ’81’, is given a quick backstory in the form of an opening scene – set two years before the main event – ​​depicting a tragic military incident involving his brother (a sadly underused Jai Courtney) in Kandahar. Subsequent flashbacks in which 81 often relive the trauma he experienced at inopportune moments.

While undergoing training in Colorado with a new group of recruits, 81 finds himself recruited by his commanding officers (Dennis Quaid and Esai Morales, competing to see who can be the rudest) to lead a mission to recover a downed pilot in the wilderness. There they encounter the titular alien, which looks like a giant Roomba with legs. And the invader is certainly not friendly, unleashing a barrage of deadly rays that blast men into smithereens.

The first half of the film largely features montages of the kind of vigorous workouts—including walking on the bottom of a swimming pool while holding heavy weights—that Pete Hegseth might have used to lull himself to sleep. But all the grunting, grimacing and flexing on display is just a prelude to the main event, as 81 and his fellow soldiers – among them “109” (Jack Batten), “7” (Stefan James) and “57” (Daniel Webber) – fight for their lives. It’s also a good thing that the characters don’t have names, as they are largely indistinguishable from each other.

Director Patrick Hughes directs the intense action scenes with undeniable skill, having gained relevant experience through his previous directing of films such as Consumable 3 and killer Bodyguard And its sequel. There are some wonderfully staged scenes, including an unsettling sequence involving a cliff-crossing on a top rope, for which the stunt artists and Ritchson, who has done many of his own stunts, deserve extra pay.

There’s also no shortage of fireworks, with frequent explosions serving as a helpful reminder for viewers to stop folding their clothes and resume looking at the screen. The film’s R rating is well-deserved thanks to the abundance of burned and dismembered bodies that appear in the alien machine’s wake.

Unfortunately, the screenplay by Hughes and co-writer James Beaufort leaves a lot to be desired, with lines like “Help me 7!” It looks like a student begging a classmate to give him the answer to a difficult test question. Not to mention this exchange during a particularly tense moment: “Wait, you mean he’s from another planet?” asks one of the soldiers. “Well, it’s certainly none of that,” 81 answers. Not even Stallone or Schwarzenegger could sell dialogue like that.

Ritchson, whose massive size is a special effect in itself, exudes his usual charisma, but the one-note nature of the proceedings doesn’t give him the opportunity to do much more than appear in physical or emotional pain. Although he seems at home behind the wheel of the massive excavator with which his character battles the alien machine in the climactic sequence.

The film ends on the kind of rousing patriotic tone — with soldiers running around in slow motion with rifles in hand — that could easily end up being a commercial for American military recruitment. They’ll probably ignore the fact that the movie was filmed primarily in Australia.