Anthony Mackie stars in Outside The Wire, Netflix latest science fiction/futuristic war film. Keeping its promise to release new movies every week, the film is now available for streaming starting January 15, 2021.
Should you skip it or watch it? Read on this review to find out.
Sci-Fi/Future Warfare
Damson Idris (Snowfall, Black Mirror) and Anthony Mackie (Point Blank, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier) teams up as Lt. Thomas Harp, a drone pilot and Captain Leo, a highly advanced robotic super soldier, to stop a potential nuclear war.
Now this genre isn’t exactly new but Outside The Wire introduces something new to the formula; social awareness or social/political commentary or something similar to that. In any case, however you want to call it, this seems to be a decent recipe for success. Or is it?
Intriguing…
Helmed by Swedish Director Mikael Håfström (Evil, The Rite), Outside The Wire starts off okay. The characters, however flawed, are introduced carefully. Anthony Mackie’s take on a sentient super cyborg is superb and gives off just about the right amount of charm. Damson Idris’ Lt. Harp is right up there with him. Though I can’t help but think his character seems out of place and even unnecessary to a point.
Outside The Wire also tries to raise some tough questions. Do the needs of the many really outweighs the need of the few? How is it that the US is seemingly always in the middle of other nation’s civil war? What is good and what is evil? Is the world better with human beings at the helm?
These are questions that nobody knows what the answers really are, but they sure make an intriguing plotline. Still, intrigue should be coupled by answers or the film should at least try to explain why it doesn’t have one. Outside The Wire fails miserably on this note and simply settles for a vague uneventful ending.
…but Forgettable
The streaming service signed on some big players with actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Sandra Bullock, Dwayne Johnson, Meryl Streep and filmmakers like Zack Snyder, Antoine Fuqua, Shawn Levy, all scheduled to feature this 2021.
It is no wonder then why the visual effects look great in this film. Something that I didn’t quite expect for a film of this scale. Netflix is certainly stepping up in this area and in a lot of areas, for that matter.
Action scenes look good too, although I would bet you won’t really remember them later. Outside The Wire looks absolutely good on the outside but feels a little too hollow on the inside. This film may gain a lot of viewers now but give it a few months or weeks and I don’t think a lot of people will remember this film.
Skip or Watch?
Outside The Wire manages to keep everything intriguing for most of its running time but significantly disappoints with an ending that you’ll most likely forget sooner rather than later.
Netflix has promised to release new movie releases every week for 2021 with Outside The Wire as one of its first offerings. On that note, skip this one and hope the next ones will be better and deserve a watch.
VERDICT: SKIP!
Here is salida|etc’s rating for Outside The Wire.
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