When Covid first came around, it kind of shut down nepo baby John David Washington’s movie “Tenet.” And that’s a shame, because that was a bit of fun. Now Denzel’s son is at it again, giving us another big sci-fi picture. He’s playing a character who, like the real-life actors battling A.I. in the courts these days, is fighting AI running amok in “New Asia.”
Watching this movie, at first I thought it was Blade Runner meets Apocalypse Now. Yet I kept noticing other films it reminded me of, too – RoboCop, The Matrix, A.I., Ex Machina, Minority Report, Star Wars, Avatar, The Golden Child, Terminator, and most recently, Oppenheimer. But they have created a futuristic world that is stunning to look at and very well conceived. Now, that doesn’t mean the script doesn’t have a few plot holes here and there.
Washington plays a soldier named Joshua (there’s not a less tough sounding name in movie history). He’s a special forces agent that’s grieving the loss of his wife Maya (Gemma Chan of “Don’t Worry Darling” and “Crazy Rich Asians”) from a botched raid years earlier (that scene starts the film).
And just like in the last Mission: Impossible movie, A.I. has created a weapon that can now end mankind. Society got a taste of that when they drop a nuke on Los Angeles killing over a million people, and starting a war.
The incredibly talented Allison Janney (see her in “The Way Way Back” and thank me later) plays against type, as a tough leader of an elite operatives group that wants Joshua to help them locate the weapon. He’s already lost an arm and a leg, and wants none of it. Yet, when she shows him a video that suggests his wife survived the raid, he agrees to help as long as he can rescue her in the process.
The weapon Joshua has to destroy is the A.I. that’s a young child named Alfie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles). Ha! You think you had a tough time trying to decide when people asked you if you’d kill baby Hitler if you could go back in time. This tyke just wants to watch cartoons and be left alone.
It was great to see Ken Watanabe as Harun, who is one of the New Asia leaders, who is a Sim (a humanoid who has to fear the military because of this whole bomb dropping incident). I would have liked to see a bit more of his character explored.
There were such beautiful set pieces and sound design, and solid acting. I also thought about other movies though, with various character names. Every time someone yelled out for “Shipley” I thought about “Ripley” in “Alien.” The little girl named Alfie, made me think of Michael Caine. Yet those are probably things that won’t bother anyone else. I’ve just seen too many movies over the years.
The Hans Zimmer score was terrific, as were the needle drops. It was nice to hear deeper Deep Purple cuts, along with Argent, The Bats, Radiohead, Aeryth, The Rondels, and one of the most beautiful piano pieces ever – Debussy’s “Claire de Lune.”
I think my wife liked the film a bit more than I did, although she said when we were leaving, “It felt like AI could have written this script.”
It’s still worth checking out (and we were lucky enough to see it in IMAX).
3 stars out of 5.