Lots of Style But No Substance
Director: Nic Mathieu
Starring: James Badge Dale, Emily Mortimer, Clayne Crawford, Max Martini and Bruce Greenwood
Rated: N/A
Studio: Legendary Entertainment and Netflix (distributor)
Running Time: 1 Hr, 40 Mins
With hit shows like Stranger Things, Daredevil, House of Cards and Orange is the New Black on their resume, you think Netflix would be able to produce some original movies of equal quality. Their new original film Spectral reveals that, for the time being, Netflix should stick to doing what they do best.
Video: Netflix US & Canada
The Eastern European nation of Moldova teeters on all out civil war. American troops are desperately trying to contain the mayhem, clashing with regime loyalists and insurgents every day. But a new threat enters the equation, invisible enemies that can kill with a touch begin killing troops within the war torn city.
The military summons DARPA engineer extraordinaire Dr. Clyne (James Badge Dale), who designed the imaging goggles that are the only thing that can see the deadly ghosts. But Klein’s search for answers becomes a battle for survival as the ghosts they start out tracking turn on them and become unstoppable hunters. Klein and company find themselves at ground zero for a new global threat that transcends traditional weaponry, tactics and understanding.
Spectral looks great. It has some slick visuals, cool toys and a lot of effort went into some of the costumes and prop designs. It looks like a well-done, first person shooter. But while it looks like a video game, it tells its story the same way.
There’s little in the way of character development and the story stumbles along in linear fashion. The effects are knocking on the big kids’ door, but the storytelling is rudimentary. Worse yet, it doesn’t even feel like it’s really trying to find its storytelling legs, devoting most of its energy to looking cool. The acting is pretty pedestrian (Emily Mortimer is miles from The Newsroom, one of the best shows to ever come out of HBO) but in all fairness to the performers, very little seems to be demanded of them. Spectral is the popular kid of original streaming movies; it looks really cool but isn’t that deep and is failing most of its classes.
In the end, Spectral suffers from its format and its ambition. It tries really hard to be big screen worthy, and it succeeds in a number of respects, but it falls noticeably short in some of the most important ones. The concept has some promise, a sort of a Call of Duty meets Ghostbusters meets X-Files premise, but it can’t really establish an identity in a hundred minutes. Everyone involved would have been better off exploring its concept in a longer, more thorough medium. Remember how much you liked Stranger Things? Now imagine trying to tell that story in a two-hour movie instead of an eight-part miniseries.
Universal was originally planning on buying domestic distribution rights with an eye on a late summer release date. They were wise to reconsider because not only would Spectral have been vilified at the box office, it would have been a sizeable financial failure as well. In the end it was a casualty of its decision not to execute a promising story. If you already subscribe to Netflix, it’s worth a lazy weekend watch if you have nothing else to do. But it never would have been worth the price of a movie ticket.
Image: Legendary Pictures
