‘Onslaught’
Directed by Adam Wingard (R)
★★
“If you’ve seen this type of movie before, the makers of Onslaught are betting you’ll want to see their ersatz rehash, too,” said Simon Abrams in RogerEbert.com. A sci-fi action-horror flick that might have made more sense if it was released in the 1980s, this “empty-headed” siege drama pits an Army-vet single mom against three government-engineered super soldiers. But while it delivers “some satisfyingly full-throated gore effects,” Onslaught “isn’t thoughtful enough to make you care about its paint-by-numbers story beats” and does nothing with its potentially timely vision of the American military unleashing mayhem on U.S. citizens.
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At least it gives the “magnetic” Adria Arjona her first solo lead role, said Benjamin Lee in The Guardian. Playing an ex-sniper now raising a young daughter in a trailer park, the Andor and Hit Man star “gets to shoot, quip, and chainsaw her way to the center of the frame” when the super soldiers escape from a military lab and begin killing every human in sight. Still, there’s a limit to what Arjona can do with the role because “the situations she’s placed into are not quite inventive enough.” Director Adam Wingard, who’s returning here to indie filmmaking after two Godzilla vs. Kong movies, has called Onslaught a B movie with A-movie polish, but “I’d call it a B-minus success.” Though “the violence is sometimes spectacular,” said William Bibbiani in The Wrap, “the actual onslaught part of the movie doesn’t begin until surprisingly late.” More surprisingly, “the film ends just when it’s getting good.”
‘The Dog Stars’
Directed by Ridley Scott (R)
★★
“At this point in his career, Ridley Scott can churn out a feature like The Dog Stars in his sleep,” said Nick Schager in The Daily Beast. “The question is, why did he want to when it boasted so little originality?” The director of Alien and Blade Runner, now 88, is “the rare artist who knows how to visually paint on a big-screen canvas,” but that talent isn’t enough to save this “by-the-books” post-apocalyptic drama about an isolated young widower with a dog, a small plane, and, eventually, a second chance at love.
The movie, which bombed on its opening weekend, works best as a character study, said David Fear in Rolling Stone. Despite its occasional gunfights and the presence of Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, and Guy Pearce in supporting roles, “the loneliness of the grieving survivalist is the main preoccupation,” and Jacob Elordi gets “his Clint Eastwood moment,” proving he could make a career of playing “steely, still-waters-run-deep” types. When the film focuses on Elordi’s dreamer and Brolin’s more distrustful survivalist, it’s “on reasonably solid ground,” said Bilge Ebiri in NYMag.com. But even those characters “never quite transcend their outlines,” making Scott’s adaptation of a 2012 novel feel “fundamentally hollow.” Still, because any director could have underestimated how much the novel relied on its interiority, “I’m happy this 88-year-old director continues to churn out movies.” In fact, “I look forward to whatever comes next.”
