Hope

An arse-kicking, gnarly, brutal, scary, balls-to-the-wall action horror thriller with CGI aliens that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival – that right there is the funniest thing I’ve heard all year. Then someone on Letterboxd said; “If you miss Michael Bay’s Transformers, this film is for you” and I’ve never sat up in my chair faster in my life.

Despite that hook however, I’d describe this more as a horror film that features two very long, very cool action scenes. Think watching Alien and Aliens back-to-back – tense, drawn-out horror into thrilling sci-fi monster action. The first hour or so focuses on the slow, quiet search through a ravaged town as the offscreen alien carnage gradually ramps up in frequency – until finally the first alien explodes out of the darkness, and the gunfire is virtually nonstop for the next twenty-something minutes. The horror elements don’t subside though as the action deafens – there’s a 10/10 “it’s behind you!” moment to be found.

The main draw here is the action – the rumours are true, the action scenes in this rip more than anything else this year. It’s thrilling, well-shot, tangible, and just plain cool to watch. Director Na Hong-Jin is clearly having a blast too – the way he shoots rookie Officer Lim’s entrance is the coolest thing I’ve seen all year. She comes screeching over in the police car, gets a Zack Snyder-style slow-mo hero shot as she gets out, proceeds to blow the alien’s leg off with a grenade launcher, talking shit to it the whole time. That’s cinema, baby. In a just world this would’ve won the Palme D’Or without question.

However, for all the arse-kicking and pulse-pounding thrills, I think every scene here is about twice as long as it needs to be. In-between action scenes, the energy sags significantly. The big finale action scene is a lengthy chase along the road between a police car packed with guns and a big alien monster galloping on all fours at full speed – the key word here is lengthy, because this scene felt like it went on for about three days. The obvious comparison to make is The Terminator, where ordinary people have to fight an unstoppable, unkillable enemy. The difference is that James Cameron knew when to stop and let the Terminator be killed, whereas here the tension begins to ebb when it seems like nothing will stop the alien onscreen. The main method of defence is the same gunshots again and again – another point to The Terminator is the relative creativity of killing methods on display, such as shotguns, running it over, throwing various factory hardware objects at it, and crushing it in a vice press. Here, the monotony begins to grate.

Another frustrating point is that the film doesn’t properly end. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a sequel setup or if it’s intentionally open-ended, but it lends the film a frustratingly unfinished quality.

Sidenote – not sure if it’s the film itself or just the cinema I saw this, but this is a LOUD film. Dare I say sometimes turning the volume down a few notches would make it less distracting? Made the Cyclops’ scream from The Odyssey sound quaint.