3 out of 5

Directed by: Patrick Hughes

If you’re surprised, you’re probably not paying much attention, so I’m going to spoil something up front: Alan Ritchson fights a big ol’ robot in this movie. It’s in the trailers; and something forthcoming is pretty clunkily inserted by “random” chatter about a peculiar asteroid in orbit around the planet, so hopefully that’s not really a spoiler, but that said – probably the less you know about this movie, the better you’d be. I might have followed Ritchson here, for example, but without the hook of the robot, it’s all very war porn-y – and, I mean, it ultimately still is – so I might’ve shrugged it into a maybe pile. But hook bitten, I was all in. But I’m glad I didn’t read / explore further, and got to engage with the movie on its own terms, because it’s one of those big, dumb and fun actioners, and not having any expectations otherwise let me strap in for the ride.

Which, as mentioned, can be a little rah-rah, but most of that is for the sake of setting up the drop-off into robo-battlin’ calamity. “81” – Ritchson, otherwise unnamed except by his number in the Ranger program – loses his brother in a war-time scuffle in the film’s opening, latching on to a last minute promise for the both of them to join the elite Rangers to dedicate himself to that cause… One that he’s failed at multiple times, and just coming under the age cap for this final attempt.

It is a little curious how exactly he failed before, as we see 81 power through all of the training super manfully – almost like a machine himself, omg – with his only ding being his refusal to take a leadership position. Natch, when he passes, his superiors offer that pass with a caveat: only if he acts as team leader. Bing bang boom, the few people with speaking roles we’ve met (who can fill out “the funny one,” and “the nervous one,” and etc. team roster) pass also, and they’re all dropped into the woods for one final training mission. And then they meet the robot.

There is one fantastic hitch they give this film to separate it from many similar flicks – from which it gleefully (and successfully) pulls, mind you, including Predator and Aliens – that because this is a training mission… the team has no actual ammo. They have some demos, but it’s otherwise all blanks. Would the weapons have done much? Probably not, but it’s an instant think-on-your-feet ante up that really made the last half of the film fly by.

Director Patrick Hughes, DP Aaron Morton, and editor Andy Canny also prove to be an excellent crew for balancing stock montage-type sequences and flyover shots of scenery with the down-in-the-dirt moments, nailing a great believable valley between the computer supported effects and practical work, and, maybe more importantly, getting the sense of scale down so that the robot seems properly imposing. There’s one “single shot” sequence that’s a bit of a groan, going for chaos but looking way too video gamey, but that aside, all of the action sequences sing, and do a great job of building tension with a gimmick where the robo makes compasses go cuckoo.

There’s some story and vague character work in here that everyone commits to well enough; I was never taken out of the movie by anyone’s acting, or an attempt to make the story “deep.” It does seem like a miss that it still mostly boils down to war porn at the end – some Verhoeven satire would’ve been welcome – but the film by no means shorts us on robo-battling goodness that I think it otherwise promises.