Elevation (2024) – Film Review
Director: George Nolfi
Cast: Anthony Mackie, Morena Baccarin, Maddie Hasson
Certificate 15
By Roger Crow
Key rules are crucial in certain thrillers. For example: ‘Don’t make a sound above a certain level/avoid the light and you won’t become lunch for savage aliens’ (A Quiet Place/Pitch Black). Joining the ‘Do this and you won’t get killed’ genre is a smart, well-crafted yarn in which the obligatory savage beasts snack below 8,000 feet.
The plot sounds like it was generated on Chat GPT, or a similar AI programme, but don’t let that put you off. The beasts are called Reapers (yawn), and the human race has been decimated – a whopping 95 per cent of humanity was wiped out by these mystery creatures.
Anthony Mackie is Will, a role which could have been played by Will Smith in the days before his outrageous Oscar shenanigans. (Hollywood’s loss is Scarborough’s gain this summer). Screen Will has a sick son who needs filters for the machine which keeps him alive. Moving scenes between father and son, or they would be if we were saved the: “I love you son”, and “I love you dad” dialogue.
“Locations are gorgeous”
Morena Baccarin is Nina, an alcoholic boffin who may have come up with a way to defeat the Reapers. Naturally they go off on a mission to find stuff, and naturally they have to venture ‘below the line’. And no, that doesn’t mean they’re advertising stuff that won’t be seen by the public
The whole thing is nicely handled by director George Nolfi, who crafted sublime Matt Damon sci-fi offering The Adjustment Bureau in 2011, which also starred Mackie.
The Colorado locations are gorgeous, and a welcome change from the usual concrete-blasted backdrops of similar thrillers. I do wonder if that all-important third act would have been better with Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’. U2’s ‘Elevation’ would also have worked well over the closing titles, if only for the namesake factor.
“Perfect length”
Admittedly all the clothes and props look like they were bought off the peg, so credibility is stretched to breaking point, but that’s true of most Hollywood post-apocalyptic thrillers.
It’s nice to see Ms Baccarin playing a role with more heft than her earlier glamourpuss roles, while Anthony Mackie is as reliable as ever. This is arguably a more rewarding movie than his megabucks offering Captain America: Brave New World.
Elevation is a perfect length for the material at a little over 90 minutes, and a good score too by H Scott Salinas. Though the $18million production tanked in the States, it should find a good home on VOD and streaming. Don’t hold your breath for that mooted sequel however.
