MovieChat Forums > Outside the Wire (2021) Discussion > another netflix looks awesome, little su...

another netflix looks awesome, little substance flick

posted 3 years ago by maximmm (3041)
10 replies | jump to latest

Anthony Mackie acted well - I mean, he definitely has plenty of charisma. Unfortunately, his character just ended up jumping and running for the second half of the film, with no further character development.
The lead, on the other hand, was nowhere near as good.
I feel like there were quite a few acting mishaps - soldiers/commanders smirking at all the wrong times, I wasn't sold on the lead's redemption and that's mainly due to poor acting (from the lead and the supposedly pissed off commander) and poor directing (directors are the ones in charge of getting the best out of the actors).
Mackie, being a prototype ai, was given waay too much authority/freedom for this to be believable. You can bet your arse, a prototype with that much authority freedom would have been monitored 24/7 - including monitoring the sound/visual feeds from the implants.

All in all, this was one of those numerous netflix sci-fi specials, where the sfx are awesome, the visuals are great, but there are major problems either with plot or acting and it all makes the thing subpar, despite seemingly great production values. I call it the netflix disease. It seems to me like netflix always tries to save money in the writing/acting department, while spending the bulk of the money on the sfx.
After seeing these amazing looking netflix sci-fi films, you are always left disappointed and thinking how awesome it could have been with just a few improvements.

While I don't follow imdb's ratings, but in this case it's spot on - 5.6/10

[–] MasterPenguin (165) 3 years ago

I agree. Especially the prototype stuff. How was he given such immense freedom. It makes no sense. He would have a personal drone, constant visual and audio streaming, more proper handlers and not just ones he chooses, and if are giving some freedom of choice then still limited to certain authorities orders that can’t be overridden.

In saying that they also would never ever allow their property to be destroyed unless was 100% last call option. So the drone strike would never have happened there would be way to much money involved for them to do that or allow that to happen.

Action was cool, some story moments were ok but overall it’s a funish action movie.

[–] maximmm (3041) 3 years ago

Another thing to consider - where are the rest of the human-like androids?
I mean, the only other instances of robots that we see are plain robots, no humanoid features, no superior AI, etc.
There's simply no way that there'd be a such a jump in technology from crude robots to one single prototype android which is impossible to tell from human. There are steps in every innovation - we saw absolutely no evidence of that here.

Again, crappy writing - crappy world-building.

[–] MasterPenguin (165) 3 years ago

Thing is would have been really simple to get past this, just bring in the "creator" a one of a kind whiz who managed to create this prototype through skill and an accident (hence why they are working out some of the bugs still aka him trying to kill them all so more prototypes aren't built. It's not realistic but least falls pretty well inside typical sciency stuff in movies.

This yeah they have stock standard Robots which don't appear to have advanced at all from when built, and then suddenly you have one of the most advanced creations on earth.

[–] redban (5183) 3 years ago

I’ll be honest - I didn’t get the plot in this movie. I found myself kinda dozing off trying to follow what was going on, why Mackie wanted to launch nukes etc.

The visuals were good, and Mackie is a good actor. That’s really all I got from this movie

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8291) 3 years ago

The best Netflix original sci-fi movie so far, as far as I can tell, is What Happened to Monday. That film was genuinely cool and yet it got very little attention.

Go check that one out if you haven't seen it.

[–] redban (5183) 3 years ago

[deleted]

[–] TylerAArse (2654) 3 years ago

What Happened to Monday was a pretty good movie. I liked it.

[–] maximmm (3041) 3 years ago

I left a comment on that board 3 years ago - that comment tells me I didn't like it much - lol

By the way, watching Love, Death and Robots now - it's not a movie, just an anthology of short sci-fi animated films on netflix and I am pretty impressed. Not a whole lot of depth due to time limitations, but for a netflix show - pretty decent.

[–] moviechatterer (13270) 3 years ago

had to look it up to remember i'd seen it ,
but yes , good film!

[–] R_Kane (15828) 3 years ago

Netflix depends on a stupid audience. End of story.