Warriors of Future (2022)
Fight for tomorrow
Tonight we get a movie that I was hoping for for a while that Netflix finally brought over so I could see it. That’s right, turn on your subtitles and get your glasses, tonight we are going to hop a rail car to the futuristic action flick of Chinese blockbusters. Of all the movies I see, I would say China probably has the closest grasp to being remarkably similar to what you’d expect out of the corpse-god that is Hollywood. Don’t get me wrong, I love me me some Bollywood especially, but their in a league their own you know? Anyways, grab the powered armor suits and put them in your APC, it’s time to check Warriors of Future.
Our story is basically just “What if humanity had the worst time ever” in an opening format. Tech advances make robots easier and better, which leads to way more war. That, of course, leads to way worse environmental disasters, eventually causing the air to be so smoggy and garbage that people need to make super fancy domes in order to filter it out. As if it wasn’t bad enough, the planet then gets smacked by a meteor - but it’s not just any meteor, it’s a big old space rock with alien plant life on it - and that plant life loves water. Everytime it rains the plant destructively grows, but on the flip side it does purify the air good. This leaves a team to be tasked with injecting it with a virus to cause the alien plant to become more inert while still doing it’s thing at purifying the air.
Of course, that all goes to crap because humans being humans, but also because it turns out alien plant’s don’t like planes and have a tendency to rip them out of the air. Given our main team only consists of three to four folks, it’s pretty easy to get invested in the characters. One has some past trauma about a daughter who lost a fight to cancer that comes up particularly when they come across a random little girl who lost her mom to bug creatures while scavenging. This thankfully doesn’t turn into a major downer to the movie playing out like the random injection of kids can do sometimes - and the rest of the main characters will generally have at least one who grows on you by the end. Except the bad guy, of course, but generally speaking a bad guy really shouldn’t.
Actors do a pretty good job, particularly in the realms of what you’d expect. I can’t really attest to line delivery or the likes, as I don’t speak Chinese, but that’s the norm for foreign movies. It seems like body language does a good job conveying things, so I feel confident saying that the acting jobs are pretty well done even if I can’t understand. There are times where things get a bit hammed up I feel, but it never ends up feeling unintentional if a character is being over the top or anything.
Plants vs Zombies are getting out of hands for the bystanders.
While I will say that most the movie isn’t as super out there in originality as one might think, it still all works. The mix of man versus machine and bug and plant leads to plenty of varied action segments - indeed, even just man versus reclaiming nature in the case of the collapsing building scene - so it never really starts to feel stale. Admittedly, the trailer that sold me on the movie doesn’t happen until the final act of the movie, the veritable “final level” of the video game if you will complete with boss fight. For that final section I was the most excited, but the rest of it was still generally a pleasure to watch. You have a nice tense, almost horror section in the hospital after a crazy roller coaster flying segment at the front to help front end some minor character moments and a whole lot of building out that final level.
Effects work is pretty on point. Admittedly, I had a few moments were something just felt off about the effects work - and I can’t really tell what it was.They didn’t look bad, it’s just something seemed off about it. We do get some pretty sweet CG elements and plenty of explosions and fights with robots and bugs to round things up pretty well. For those wanting more grandiose moments, the plant expansion and attack run look great and could easily fit in any big large scale disaster movie. The robots look good, especially the two big’n models that are probably one of my favorite parts of the movie. I think that most will be content with it - it’s no worse than any other blockbuster-style movie you would check if you ask me.
Audio isn’t bad. I assume the inflections and stuff in line deliveries is pretty good, but again I don’t understand Chinese and their inflections so I’m not the expert for that. Music is pretty decent - good stuff for the scenes but none of it stuck around with me afterwards as is par for the course. Audio balance is good, and you can hear the lines fine even if they are quiet about it (although again this is only in regards to the volume and not me understanding). Plenty of other sounds add into scenes as well, including the explosions and the rain and the likes - it ends up feeling quite well put together.
What did the five robot digits say to the humans face?
I enjoyed this movie quite well. I’d love to see it again with some dubs or something (which I didn’t check to see if that was an option), which would allow me to more focus on the actual screen since a lot of it did look pretty good from what I saw. I can also say it would have made a great game based off what I see. Costumes, effects, everything comes together well. I’d say if you got the chance and can stomach subtitles, check it out for a pretty fun time.