Rogue

I really enjoyed watching this film. In my opinion the acting was good and the story was great

Okay Meagan Fox is a goddess and here proves that she can act too. Plus she's an eye candy in this one with combat gear and weapons. Two stars for her.The movie is suffering from a very bad plot and storyline, there's no proper build-up, no character background explanation, nothing. The characters are mainly random filler persons that are all over the place with very little or no actual value to the main story. Story-telling wise, the whole thing is a total mess, highly unrealistic and it is difficult to make any sense. For example the team contacts the mission's HQ in order to be extracted and the reply to that is that they have to remain in the farm till the morning for no reason, other than they always send the main character to the toughest missions. Seriously now? Oh! we'll take a good night's sleep now and we'll come pick you guys up in the morning, You can do it now can't you?The action scenes are horrible, airsoft videos on youtube have better tactical action. Enemies spawn endlessly from nowhere like in video games, highly unrealistic situations, the absence of a tactical/combat consultant is highly evident. To top it off we got a lioness who makes an appearance whenever convenient and then by magic disappears for some minutes till she decides to come by again.The CGI is pretty BAD. I mean c'mon this is 2021 not 2000! The beast's animation is amateur grade to say the least, crappy textures, crappy modelling that exaggerates the animal form ridiculously.I loved the idea of portraying the wild animal cruelty going on in Africa that this film is trying to put across, (the third star is for that concept), it is just very very very badly done. One can definitely watch all of it quite easily, but it is a waste of time really.With half the budget and a stronger plot and better organized screenplay it could have been an ace movie.I am very glad this movie was for free, I would really be pissed off to pay for crap like that.

Ok let's do this.First things first : as a film nerd I will focus in my review mostly on the positive surprise, which I discovered in that piece of work. At the same time, I will acknowledge the director's brave move to try to mash-up some classic genres into a maybe very individual title. Let's see how far I get with my arguments here:[I watched the film on Amazon Prime around 9 p.m. CET with one break in the middle]1) I liked the colour-grading very much.The film's heat, South Africa's possible savannah combat scenario and the at night indoor/outdoor moments were strongly supported through the colour grading. It gives the film a generativity and allowed me to relax according to the well known Hollywood cinema look.2) The first thing I recognised, was the framing quality. I think the camera capturing and action scenes capturing were executed on a high standard. I liked very much the crane shots which contained a very dynamic movement. As well I claim that the film contains a solid variety of camera shots. There is a wonderful range, where the camera exploits house interior shots, crane and field shot, but as well static frames.I claim that the camera in this movie has dominantly strong moments in contrast to a few disadvantaged presented frames.3) Sound and score - I enjoyed actually the sound landscape, which was a pretty standard action film sound repertoire - very honorable mention deserves the matter of fact that the film is not score overloaded, instead it really tries to exploit the field space with many silent moments, and more sound design focus. That's well done here and kept me in that fictional world.4) The domain/genre/direction/sphere Alright, here it might become very subjective , but I have to write this because I hope that some other people who read this, discovered the same feeling: After a short while , basically after the intro chapter, I had the feeling that the film's structure and vibe inherited several qualities from Castlevania (Anime series on Netflix). I feel that the director managed to inherit all positive strengths from Castlevania's spheric style. The film starts with a mission , which ends up in a soft horror-scifi-fantasy vibe, what I enjoyed a lot tbh. At the same time it felt as well in some action chapters like a very very well done "Counter-Strike" Video Game interpretation. Wonderful action camera flowing shots combined with amazing light. (I think the gaffer department did a great job here!)The film's narrative is very clear and straight-forward.At many points the dialogues save within a last second the depth of that world, which the writers wanted to establish. The characters talk about certain things in the story, which provide at least a certain depth (ideology, background and humour) for the viewer and they justify at least the play's space and battle-field. Some cliches and some interesting twists are positively set in the film and again , I know that some people will hate me for writing that, but I am convinced that even some characters contain the humour DNA from some archetype characters from the Castlevania anime series. Well done.5) The acting - there were several weaknesses , which I consciously don't want to present here, as I decided from the beginning to point only on positive values and facts. I was positively surprised by the lead actress, who establishes pretty well her position in that world. We can skip the matter of fact that these guys are definitely not real pro-soldiers in real life; however I think it is interesting, that she presents very strong her claim to be that person in that time and space and she establishes a very solid vibe around herself. It is an overall legit and homogeneous presentation of a fictional role within that film genre. I see her movements very homogenous and they establish after just a few minutes of observing the legitimacy for her character. That's O'Hara and that's how she individually would be in that story - fine, accepted. Even though, I am afraid that some viewers would try to compare her to real-life soldiers, I believe that it would be the trap here and would genuinely make no sense at any point. These soldiers are not real, I accepted the show as a fictional alternative universe. My strategy here was: "lean back, enjoy the popcorn and allow every single shot to surprise you with something little." (no expectations) Some supporting characters felt like NPC characters in a well done video game - their importance was obviously not that huge and I felt that the dynamic and depth between the characters grew a new quality, once the ensemble shrinked to its core unit.From then on (film's second half) I was able to connect more to the humor and hidden funny moments.Now after thinking about it, I think it becomes ridiculously funny how virtuous e.g. one specific character starts to shoot from scene to scene....well done - that ridiculous spiral is a nice comedy mechanism which is used wisely here.6) Editing - 50/50 Tbh I liked the pace in some scenes and chapters very much. Additionally at some points I thought oh damn I wish they would have more budget for it, because some few moments felt to me like gap-filling - for example some additional "jumps into the water" - Maybe it's a love-hate thing - I claim that it provides to it a trashy element, which maybe feels ok at a certain level, if the viewer openly accepts it. What I enjoyed very much was the pace every time when the group divided and some action scenarios (inhouse) had a wonderful flow, which I enjoyed 100%.7) The casting - I loved the variety in the cast. Beside the matter of fact that some actors were not strong in some moments, I enjoyed the matter of fact how rich the type-cast was in the film. The butcher in the beginning of the film, omg what a character... and I think that surprisingly the film includes from many ethnic backgrounds a lovely variety of actors, what worked for me well.8) VFX - The cat and what happens to the helicopter = I mean hahaha - the VFX fulfills absolutely the basics - I accepted it with a smile. It's fun..... Ok, I believe I wrote already too much - so, I shall stop to punish you with my experience. I hope that my view opens an interesting potential for discussions.Give it a go, and watch it.Would I watch the film a second time?Yes, maybe - if somebody of my friends, who didn't watch it , would like to watch it, I would definitely join for fun, because I genuinely liked some funny twists in that fantasy-scifi-horror Cat-and-Mouse play.Congrats to the creators - well done, thank you for the horror-genre experience with Rogue.P.S.: I liked the director's personal statement at the end of the film.

That was a really cool film. I'm not a huge Megan Fox fan, but I've started to appreciate the fact that she can actually act and her character in this film is extremely likeable and more than holds the film together. Definitely one of her better films. The lioness attack scenes are good, but cgi of lioness not brilliant but not rubbish either. On the whole I thoroughly enjoyed the film. Great to see Adam Deacon... No spoilers but he does do a baddie well. 7/10