JP Nunez
I’m a big fan of Anthony Mackie. The guy just exudes a cool charm and charisma whenever he’s on screen, so no matter how bad the rest of a film may be, he’s always an absolute joy to watch. Whether it’s silly B-movies like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, big-budget superhero blockbusters like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, or smaller genre fare like Synchronic, Mackie always delivers, so when I heard he was in a new film called Elevation, I was immediately intrigued. I didn’t know a ton about the movie, but I didn’t need to. It’s my favorite genre with one of my favorite actors, and that was enough for me. I bought a ticket for opening weekend as soon as I got the chance, and I couldn’t wait to finally see it.
Elevation was directed by George Nolfi, and it stars Anthony Mackie, Morena Baccarin, and Maddie Hasson. The film is set in a post-apocalyptic world where the human race has been almost entirely wiped out by deadly, seemingly indestructible monsters called reapers, but as always, a remnant has found a way to survive. These creatures won’t go more than 8,000 feet above sea level, so as long as the remaining population stays above that line, they’re safe.
In this world, a man named Will lives with his son Hunter in a mountain community, and one day, he finds himself forced to enter the reapers’ territory. He runs out of some medical supplies his son needs, so he decides to make the treacherous journey below the 8,000-foot mark to pick them up from an abandoned hospital. Since the trip is a suicide mission alone (or, more accurately, even more of a suicide mission), Will enlists the help of two neighbors, Katie and Nina, and together, the trio set out on this dangerous undertaking.
Much like Heretic, this weekend’s other big genre release, Elevation also stands or falls largely on the strength of its three main characters. The majority of the movie is just them out in the wilderness or the ruins of human civilization, so if they don’t win you over, this film doesn’t have a shot. And unfortunately, they’re a pretty mixed bag.
Let’s start with Will. He’s played by Anthony Mackie, and he’s just as good as I expected. Mackie makes you believe that he wouldn’t think twice about risking his life to save his son, and he never wavers in that conviction. But as good as he is, he can’t quite carry this movie all on his own.
He needs good characters to play off of, and on that count, the film really stumbles. To be fair, the other two stars, Morena Baccarin and Maddie Hasson, aren’t bad. Baccarin convincingly plays Nina as a demoralized woman who hates herself so much she has to drink her pain away, and Hasson imbues Katie with a smooth, natural believability that fits this bleak world perfectly.
However, as convincing as those performances are, nothing about these characters truly grabbed me. They’re not particularly quirky or charming, and to make matters worse, I found their dynamic really off-putting. They clearly dislike each other right from the start, so every time they interacted with each other, they made it incredibly difficult for me to root for them. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t need all my movie characters to love each other, but when I’m not enamored with them as individuals, this kind of relationship just amplifies my aversion to them.
Those weak characters do Elevation in before the film has a chance to really get going, and that’s a shame because there’s some genuinely good stuff here. Take the monsters, for instance. These things look like a cross between the giant ants from Them! and a triceratops, and when they go on the attack, they’re legitimately intense. But because I didn’t care about the characters, those scenes had almost zero effect on me.
I often say in my reviews that if you’re not scared for the people in a movie, you won’t be scared of the threat they’re facing, and the same goes for horror action. If you don’t genuinely fear for the characters’ safety, the thrills will be little more than visual noise, and that’s exactly what happens here. Almost all the action in Elevation falls flat no matter how well it’s executed, so after a while, watching this film just starts to become a chore.
Along similar lines, there are also some nice character moments here and there that had the potential to be touching, but they’re way too little way too late. By the time they came around, I had already checked out emotionally, and nothing Will and his crew said or did could bring me back around. I simply didn’t care anymore, so now matter how good these scenes are in themselves, in the context of the movie as a whole they end up feeling pretty lackluster.
As I said before, it’s a real shame, but it shows how important characters are to a film. They can influence other elements of a movie in surprising ways, and when they’re subpar like they are here, they can completely sink an otherwise decent experience. This weak lead trio even prevented me from enjoying the things Elevation did well, so I’m sad to report that I wouldn’t recommend this film. Granted, it’s not one of the worst movies of the year, but if you’re looking for some good new horror, you’re much better off watching something else.
Elevation is playing in theaters right now.
