Silver Screen Resolution, Take Two: Spectral

For my 2018 Resolution Project, I decided to take a page out of Lane’s book and do my own Silver Screen Resolution (hence the Take Two part of the title). There are a lot of movies out there I haven’t seen but feel like I should have, or movies that I’ve simply wanted to see and have yet to get around to it. With a deadline of some kind, now I’ll have to finally make a point to find them, get them, and watch them. My rules for the resolution are slightly different in that:

1. They must be spec-fic (this has not changed).
2. The movie will not be one that is in theaters or that would be part of a Sound Off!
3. They don’t have to be popular – or even something folks have heard about.

But I’ve decided to take my resolution to the next level as well, since I had more than 12 movies on my list that I wanted to see. And since we’re in “Take Two” mode, I might as well up the ante: I will instead be seeing two spec fic movies per month rather than just one. Since we’re in ghost mode after R.I.P.D., might as well continue with a Netflix original, Spectral.

Spoiler-free.

Fair warning — I’d actually already seen half of this movie before. The back half. So I knew what the specters were and how the movie ended. But what I didn’t know was how everything got rolling. And I was curious, so here we are.

Clyne (James Badge Dale) makes defense technology for a living. Armor. Goggles. Other gear meant to help those on the military frontlines stay alive. He doesn’t do weapons. But because he’s created so much stuff, when one soldier sees something bizarre through his eye wear, the best way to decipher what’s going on is to send in Clyne. It’s in the war zone of Moldova that he sees something he can’t explain. The military is baffled. Fran (Emily Mortimer), the CIA operative sent in to check it out, thinks its cloaking technology. But the locals are calling them lost souls — angry dead brought up from the war that are unable to rest. Whatever these spectral things are, they can kill with a mere touch, and they are quickly spreading and killing off everything in their path.

Surrounded by ghosts…and no proton packs.

Netflix makes some good stuff and I would firmly plant this in the scifi/thriller category. It’s got great action, tense moments, and some really cool armor and weaponry. Don’t ask me where the armor suddenly comes from at the end, but it looks kickass and I’m totally down with its existence. I also really like that Netflix — or whoever is in charge of these decisions — went with a lot of practical effects. Big sets with a lot of intricacy. Real vehicles gussied up to look badass. I appreciate the time and effort that goes into making a place and the things in them realistic. CGI only appeared where it needed to be, and it was done well. Also, props to the propmasters of this film. All of the things Clyne made were nicely detailed and no doubt took some long hours to piece together from all sorts of different objects.

I really liked Clyne and all the guys he worked with. He was no-nonsense, thought things through, and while I don’t think he’d really be able to MacGuyver some of the goodies he did, I’m completely willing to suspend my disbelief and accept his scientific explanations and abilities to get things back on track. And whenever movies insert military and give them a more realistic look (movements, reactions, weapon handling, etc.) it’s always appreciated. Movies are getting much better at that…except for the guy at the start of the movie who decided to move forward without waiting for backup, but he was a redshirt anyway.

I don’t know what this armor is about but I am here for it.

When you find out what the specters are, it’s both weirdly intriguing and quite horrific. It’s easy to see why the specters are so pissed off. I’m not sure who thought of this whole thing (I assume Nic Mathieu and Ian Fried, the writers of the story), but it’s pretty interesting. And again, whether or not any of it is scientifically sound, I’m not looking for a hard SF movie. I’m looking for entertainment, and this gave it to me. The sounds and designs of the specters were pretty solid (no pun intended), and I like the reason the movie gave us to finally be able to see them.

Overall, it’s a good film. Enjoyable. The quality a lot of us have come to expect from Netflix. Sure, it’s got some clichés (scientist joins group of soldiers and has to prove he’s not a detriment, that sort of thing), it’s not very long (just over 100 minutes), and sometimes people aren’t as terrified as they should be given that death is literally a touch away, but like I said, it’s something solid to watch in the world of SF, which always seems hard to come by.  So grab some snacks, switch it on, and have fun.

And I won’t lie, when Clyne and his group were going to go on their final attack and one of them asked if anyone had any final words, I really wanted someone to just hold up his newly fashioned weapon and say, “Let’s go bust some ghosts.”

But I guess a girl can’t have everything.

Hell yeah.