Alan Ritchson kicks an alien predator’s ass in this sci-fi war movie

Plot: During the final stage of U.S. Army Ranger selection, an elite team’s training exercise turns into a fight for survival against an unimaginable threat.

Review: Nothing beats a good action movie. In the eighties and nineties, action movies didn’t try to mess with the formula of putting unnaturally muscular heroes in the path of a threat and then letting them shoot their way to a resolution. Contemporary action flicks have evolved thanks to The Matrix and John Wick, with complex choreography and stuntwork allowing anyone from Bob Odenkirk to Bert Kreischer to lead an action movie. But throwbacks to the lean, mean movies of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Van Damme can be incredibly satisfying when done well. War Machine, starring up-and-coming action star Alan Ritchson, is a standard template action movie that blends Predator with Transformers, but is so much better than that reductive comparison. Full of gory violence and solid direction, War Machine is a blast.

Alan Ritchson plays a veteran soldier referred to only as 81, his number assigned during the Army Ranger Assessment and Selection Program (RASP). There to fulfill a promise he made to his brother (Jai Courtney). The first forty minutes of War Machine show 81 as he endures the nonstop challenge of RASP under the watchful eyes of commanders Torres (Esai Morales) and Sheridan (Dennis Quaid). 81 refuses any leadership opportunities and avoids fraternizing with his fellow RASP candidates. When 81 reaches the final round, Torres and Sheridan name him squad leader for the final field exercise in which they must experience a combat simulation in the field armed with blanks. Alongside 7 (Stephan James) and a squad, 81 reluctantly heads the exercise into the wilderness. It is then that War Machine takes a turn: the soldiers come across an armored vehicle crashed in the forest, which turns out to be a heavily weaponized mech that begins taking them out.

Once the mech begins to attack, War Machine is nonstop action for the remainder of its running time. As the soldiers are picked off in varying levels of gruesome ways, 81 begins to accept his role as leader of the squadron. We don’t get a whole lot of backstory on most of the soldiers, but they all have particular value that adds to the mission, including 15 (Blake Richardson), 60 (Keiynan Lonsdale), 44 (Alex King), and 109 (Jack Patten). There is also the bespectacled soldier 23 played by James Beaufort, who co-wrote War Machine with director Patrick Hughes. Beaufort’s role and glasses are a clear nod to Shane Black, who did uncredited rewrites on Predator and appeared as Hawkins in that film. There is a great debt that War Machine owes to Predator, as the two share much of the same core DNA, down to the final showdown between 81 and the titular machine. Even though War Machine does exemplify the importance of a team and the collaboration that soldiers exude, this movie centers on Alan Ritchson, and rightfully so.

By isolating 81 and his fellow soldiers in the remote wilderness, the team is forced to use their training and resources to survive. There is not much dialogue devoted to exposition, as this film is less concerned with explaining why the aliens are here or even what they are. Each sequence of the film is about survival against a seemingly unstoppable threat, but the film never turns Ritchson’s 81 into a superhero. These characters bleed and get injured as they rely on intellect and instinct to survive. There is a gritty realism to War Machine despite the antagonist being a massive robot that shoots energy pulses. By using a lot of practical stuntwork and location shooting, the film keeps CGI mostly limited to the machine itself, giving it a realistic feel we were accustomed to for decades before the twenty-first century. Because the body count is high and the gore is plentiful, there are very few moments for the audience to catch their breath, and I found myself glued to the screen from the beginning to the very end.

Director Patrick Hughes has worked in comedy and action with The Hitman’s Bodyguard and its sequel, as well as The Man from Toronto, but he is also familiar with drawing on the annals of retro action, having directed The Expendables 3. Hughes teamed with James Beaufort, a former Power Rangers actor, to script this lean action vehicle that has all of the hallmarks of a big-budget studio project. While Lionsgate produced the film, Netflix landed the rights to release War Machine, despite its potential to be a big-screen hit. There is a strong current of patriotic energy behind the military in War Machine, as it exemplifies the Army Ranger mentality and discipline while also drawing on countless movies over the years. Hughes and Beaufort do not try to mess with the familiar dynamic we have seen in similar movies, with Predator serving as a very similar blueprint for this movie. They made the wise decision not to “unmask” the aliens, with the ending moments of War Machine serving as a nice conclusion with some open-ended potential.

With a rousing score from Dmitri Golovko, War Machine keeps its structure generic and familiar, but that is one of this movie’s strengths. Alan Ritchson has carved out a niche for himself in his Reacher role while trying his hand at other styles like Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and the Kevin James buddy comedy Playdate, but he is perfect here as the stoic hero who spouts some memorable one-liners and saves the day. Ritchson’s character is more visibly mortal than the action heroes of the eighties and nineties, but never surrenders in the face of the enemy. War Machine is a fun and action-packed throwback that is one of the better action movies in recent memory. You will come to see a hero fight a giant robot alien, and you will not be disappointed. This is not a movie that changes the genre, but it exemplifies how to do action right.

War Machine is now streaming on Netflix.

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