Review
A small village near the Korean DMZ is under attack by mysterious creatures in this thrilling but ultimately hollow sci-fi epic from Na Hong-jin.
Beom Seok (Hwang Jung-min) is a bumbling police chief investigating strange cattle mutilations that lead him to a village nearly obliterated by something. Blood and rubble are everywhere as a makeshift militia goes on the hunt and quickly finds a vaguely humanoid, definitely violent creature that nearly wipes them all out. Cue one of the raddest character intros ever as rookie cop Sung Ae (Hoyeon) comes out of nowhere to rescue Beom Seok, and the story gets to the chase.
Hope has a lot of stunningly staged action, especially in its first half. The cinematography is clear, often beautiful, and you always know where you and the characters are, no matter how kinetic the action gets. Some truly hilarious moments help pad the runtime between action set pieces, including one of the best monologues about poop I've ever seen.
Unfortunately, the movie is 2hr 45 mins, and action is almost all it has to offer. The action also becomes repetitive, like a greatest-hits reel that repeats the first chase sequence in different locations. There are lots of funny character moments and performances, but no real character development or growth.
The story's human POV is challenged midway by a pretty fantastic sci-fi concept, at least on paper. Frustratingly, we stay in the human POV, and this twist isn't addressed until near the end of the movie. This is intentional as a subversion of these types of stories, but it's bewildering in execution. It amounts to a sequel hook I'm not sure I want to see resolved, which is a shame, but if I'm gonna knock Marvel for that kind of thing, I gotta do it here.
All in all, this could have been so much better. The pieces are all there, but they're put together via vibes instead of the instruction manual. This can be cool, but unfortunately, here it's just underwhelming.
Watched at The Music Box, followed by a Q&A with director Na Hong-jin
