PREMISE
When a rogue squad of genetically engineered super soldiers breaks loose in the desert, a badass Army sniper must unleash hell to protect her young daughter.
THE GOOD STUFF
ADRIA ARJONA- For the most part, you can tell that Adria Arjona put her heart and soul into this. Something tells me that the idea that she can be the next Wonder Woman may have come from early screenings of this movie. She has action chops for sure, and not in that overtly choreographed fight sequence that so many actresses are put in the position to do. The action that she does, the fight scenes that she has, it’s all grimy stuff, and that’s a good thing. She does her best to carry this movie, but sadly, this is not a movie that can be carried honestly. She somehow is good enough to come out unscathed through all of this.
REGINALD VELJOHNSON- I don’t have much to say about his performance in this movie, but I do have to give credit for one of the more bonkers casting choices of 2026. I’m not proud to admit this, but I legit thought Reginald VelJohnson had passed away. It was quite a joy to not only see him on the big screen, but also to see him being this kind of a craggy old man. I’m not one of those conspiracy theory movie plot type of dudes, but if you think about it….. DIE HARD, FAMILY MATTERS, and this could maybe be canon….. Just saying. Lol.
THE BAD STUFF
THE AESTHETIC- I really don’t know if this movie is trying to be some kind of a grindhouse film or something like that. If it was, it would make a lot more sense. This looks like it was made in the 80s and not in a good way. The nighttime sequences are dingy and sometimes hard to see. The daytime sequences are very minimalistically done in a way that is not projecting any kind of artistic expression. And the scenes done inside of the government facility are just bad-looking sequences. Just ugly throughout.
THE UGLY STUFF
THE STORY- There barely is any. There are a lot of inspired casting choices that amount to teaspoons of entertainment (and screen time) on screen. This movie is not trying to build a bigger world outside of the story, this movie isn’t trying to explain the motivations for any of the characters, this movie doesn’t have backstory for its main character outside of 3-second flashbacks. I’m not saying that this writing has to be f****** Steinbeck or anything like that when it comes to explaining the why of the situations that are happening, but can you give me just a little bit? Is it too much to ask for world-building at all?
THE ACTION- What do the words action sequence really mean? To me, it means that there is an abundance of moving things happening at once to create a sense of excitement or tension, and, most importantly, it moves the story along. That’s not what this movie does until the last 10 to 15 minutes of it.
So why does this film refer to itself as an action movie? Well, because there are multiple sequences of super soldiers killing innocent people and mowing them down in droves. As they do this, there are really interesting lighting choices and camera angles, and that’s what they believe are action sequences. It is not. It’s complete redundancy. The super soldiers, for all they’re built up to be, do not do much more than pointing and firing guns on people who are not shooting back. It’s the most boring kind of “action” you can get.
This is a September movie. This is an early September movie. If you follow this business long enough or if you follow the trades, you’ll understand what September movies usually mean. I don’t know what time of the year you could have released something like this if not September.
This is a movie that has a lot of frosting to it but no actual cake. There’s no substance to anything going on screen. And the lack of substance is so prevalent that I start thinking of other horror movies that I hated that had way more substance to them than this, and it’s making me rethink a lot of those movies overall.
ONSLAUGHT is in theaters now
