Directed by: Timothy Woodward Jr.
Written by: Sean Ryan
Starring: Tom Sizemore, Johnny Messner, Mickey Rourke, Taylor Cole, Jon Foo
Released: March 1st, 2016
Devastation hit landmarks on U.S. soil. The Twin Towers were destroyed, collapsing and crumbling in a flurry of explosions. Various parts of the World Trade Centre were set ablaze as airplanes plummeted toward them, speeding like an arrow let loose from its bow. Many buildings, including the Deutsche Building and the Borough of Manhattan Community College, were deemed uninhabitable due to extreme levels of toxicity, extensive damage, and continuous destruction. Neighboring constructions, such as the Verizon Building, World Financial Centre buildings (now called Brookfield Place), One Liberty Plaza, the Millennium Hilton, and others suffered massive damage. The Pentagon—the epitome of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the physical manifestation of patriotism and being a “True American” (next to the Statue of Liberty, of course) was damn-near eradicated entirely,with substantial damage and fires coursing rapidly through the structure. All of this happened in just a few hours, on the remembered Tuesday of September 11th, 2001. I was eight years old. Weaponized‘s opening scene is, seemingly, a recreation of this same horrific damage. News anchors and radio stations choke up while reporting the cataclysm live to individuals not in the area, and informing those who are nearby to evacuate as quick as possible. Sadly, this recreation neither adds weight nor ties in to the rest of the film: it is forgettable, insipid, and turbulent, unable to figure out whether it’s an espionage-thriller or an action-thriller. And, regrettably, that’s the entire film.
Weaponized opens with Kyle Norris on Independence Day 2017, played by Tom Sizemore (you know, Mike Horvath in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan), wishing his son—whom we never care about—a happy birthday. What begins as a heartfelt scene turns sour as, mid-conversation, the phone cuts out; the camera quickly snaps to the television as news anchors and reporters announce the tragedy befalling the States—a recreation of 9/11. In a frantic attempt to reconnect with his son, Norris, an Army veteran, dials his son’s phone to no avail; met with merely an answering machine, Norris struggles to leave a message, stuttering and pausing during the process. A year later, his son’s birthday—and the anniversary of the terrorist attacks—roll around, and Norris is teary-eyed (or sweating, or both?); he downs a shot of whiskey (?) before saluting his fallen soldier, his fallen son. It’s supposed to instill a fervent sense of misery and tearjerking-ness, pulling at the heartstrings, but it falls flat: the character of Norris’ son is never established, and the event happens to fast for the audience to invest in him. And this feeling of detachment in characters continues through the film’s approximate 91-minute runtime.
Marketed as a sci-fi action-thriller mixing terrorism and bio-mechanical weaponry, the film stumbles to find its identity. Part action-thriller, part espionage-adventure, Weaponized seems to confuse itself on the goals and ambitions it is reaching toward. Detective Mitch Walker, played by Johnny Messner (from David Mamet’s Spartan), “must prevent a grieving father from unleashing a ‘robotic virus’ he believes will destroy the terrorist cell that murdered his son, but at an unimaginable cost.” As compelling as that summary may sound, the film never meets its potential: the narrative is uninspired, a trite story done in a multitude of films prior. Filled with contradictions, lousy “one-liners,” unexplained character motives and events, and clashing ideas, the writing falls woefully short from the grandeur the film attempts to posit. Couple this with the frantic and erratic pacing, and you get a narrative that is as inconsistent as it is frenzied, bursting with loopholes and predictable scenes.
Though the writing may not be the most engaging, the direction and some (keyword: some) of the performances are well-done. A few of the main characters—Detective Mitch Walker, Detective Phill Ross (played by Cullen G. Chambers), Professor Clarence Peterson (played by Mickey Rourke)—do a sufficient job playing the roles they were cast in. Not all of the performances are great, though: most of the cast surrounding the few adequate characterizations straddle the line of painfully mediocre or absolutely forgettable. Sadly, none of this really matters: though the direction may be done well, the cinematography can be rather annoying in some areas, and distracting in others, making all of the acting tonally inconsistent with the spectacle the film tries to create.
And does the film attempt to create a spectacle. Along with the fluctuating pacing and unclear time skips, the action in the film is uninteresting and lacks the viscera and punch needed to elicit an “edge-of-the-seat” experience; the action scenes recreate the Zach Snyder’s 300 slo-mo moments, but with too many cuts to make the fight sequence believable. One moment, bad guy gets kicked in the face by good guy, then bad guy drags good guy along the ground with a chair in good guy’s hand, then the chair slams into bad guy’s face; except the chair that was initially being held and the chair that ultimately collides with bad guy’s face are not the same chair. This imbalance happens multiple times, exacerbating the frustration of failing to comprehend the storyline.
The world Weaponized constructs is inconceivable as well. Set in a “futuristic” 2018, the setting screams “confused” atop the tallest buildings of New York. (It is never explicitly stated, but it is assumed the film takes place in a major city like Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Seattle, etc.) The film devises an inharmonious mix of futuristic tech and modern sensibilities, which doesn’t blend well: there are devices that project holograms and tablets installed in homes that allow for two-way face-to-face communication a la Skype, but people still drive vehicles powered by oil and use circa late 1990s/early 2000s computer monitors. Perhaps scrupulously nitpicky, but this disproportion only furthers the incoherence of the film.
Weaponized fails to make use care about the well-being of the characters.
Of course, because there is a “super villain,” there must be an “ultimate weapon” the super villain develops. Interestingly, the film is unclear of what it tries to centre: there is the “robotic virus” the villain uses to create the SWAP program, then there is the enormous robot advertised on the front cover of the film’s box art. Unfortunately, neither of these make an impact: the “robotic virus” (or SWAP program) isn’t thoroughly explained until about three-quarters of the way through, and the humungous robot doesn’t do anything until the final moments of the film. Weaponized wants to us to care about the well-being of the detectives, but they are never in grave danger; aside from a few “life threatening” scenes, there is never a teeth-clenching, palms-sweating moment that has you worried for the characters. There is, ostensibly, a war happening, but the effects of the war are never realized or showcased; and, because of this lack of imagery, the emotions the film wants to evoke are lost in the void, nullified by the lackluster writing.
Ultimately, Weaponized is average in everything it sets out to do. The futuristic world is unbelievable and incoherent, with too many nonsensical ideas. The performances amount to mediocre at best and forgettable at worst, with no standouts amongst the subpar acting. The writing is uninteresting, devoid of any witty or engaging dialogue. The action is boring and action-less (as contradictory as that sounds), with far too many cuts to get a sense of space, time, and movement. The narrative is uninspired and clichéd, taking cues from films with a very similar premise. (Joss Whedon’s The Avengers: Age of Ultron has many of the same themes as Weaponized.) While the cinematography can look alluring sometimes, it seems Timothy Woodward Jr. took a cut from J. J. Abrams’ book: there are far too many lens flares that distract from the scene. In one scene, Detective Ross says to Detective Walker, “Captain told you to stay behind the desk. Let it go.” Regrettably, Weaponized lets go far too early for the audience to hold on.
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