Outside the Wire is the latest action, sci-fi film from Netflix that’s set in the future and it’s full of robots and plenty of action. You’d think all this makes for an exciting film when in fact it’s the complete opposite.

Outside the Wire takes place in the year 2036 when a drone pilot named Harp, played by Damson Idris (Snowfall) goes against orders in launching a missile attack and as a result, he’s forced to work for an android officer called Leo, played by Anthony Mackie (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Hurt Locker). The two of them are tasked with going into a deadly militarized zone in order to locate a doomsday device before the insurgents do.

It happens all too often now that Netflix come along and release a below average action film but viewers continue to lap them up. It happened with The Old Guard and Project Power to name a few recent examples and it’s beginning to get a little tiresome. Outside the Wire is yet another messy, bloated action film devoid of any life or excitement.

There was definitely potential for something half decent to have come of Outside the Wire but it all just gets lost in trying to be a slick action film. Every other line in this film seemed to be exposition trying to explain something that’s been needlessly over-complicated by all the futuristic things going on. It’s an action film so you might be able to give all the expositional dialogue a pass if the action is alright and entertaining. But even the action feels boring and a chore to sit through. There are just too many action scenes that become far too confusing to follow because of choppy editing and poor CGI.

The opening scene throws you straight in with a fast-paced action scene but when the first few minutes are intercut with text trying to bring you up to speed with what’s going it all becomes too much. Within a few minutes you’re already struggling to keep up with all the information that’s been thrown at you and you’re not really interested in the action either. The sound design was quite good however and that’s one of the few redeeming factors of this film; all of the action scenes sounded really gripping and exhilarating. They just didn’t look it.

As the film goes on it tries to be much cleverer than a film like this needs to be and it results in feeling far too long. The film comes in at five minutes shy of two hours so it isn’t a long film at all and yet by the time the end credits start rolling it feels like an eternity later.

If Netflix slowed down the rate at which they’re churning out all these films they might end up with some good films but that’s not how Netflix work, they’d rather have quantity over quality as the number of people that stream their drivel always seems so high. Perhaps I’m being a little over-critical here as there are some good Netflix action films such as last year’s Extraction which was excellent but it just seems to be so often that you go to check out the latest original action offering on Netflix only to be bored and disappointed two hours later.

Overall, Outside the Wire is a bloated, messy action film, with very few redeeming qualities that will leave you bored and isn’t worth your time.

★★☆☆☆

Outside the Wire is streaming on Netflix from January 15.

Genre:

Action, Sci-fi, Thriller

Release Date:

May 21, 2021

Director:

Adam Wingard

Cast:

Julian Dennison, Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Jessica Henwick, Eiza González, Rebecca Hall, Kyle Chandler, Danai Gurira, Ziyi Zhang

Plot Summary:

Fearsome monsters Godzilla and King Kong square off in an epic battle for the ages, while humanity looks to wipe out both of the creatures and take back the planet once and for all.

Genre:

Adventure,  Sci-fi

Release Date:

January 22, 2021

Director:

Doug Liman

Cast:

Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, Mads Mikkelsen, Ray McKinnon, Nick Jonas, David Oyelowo

Plot Summary:

A dystopian world where there are no women and all living creatures can hear each others’ thoughts in a stream of images, words, and sounds called Noise.