Netflix's latest release "War Machine," a 2026 science fiction war action film, is unrelated to the streaming service's other "War Machine," which was a 2017 satirical war film. I don't get it either, I just felt inclined to get it out of the way.
This new one has a plot ripped straight out of a low-rent aisle of an 80's Blockbuster- a giant robot attacks a group of Army Ranger trainees during a simulated mission. Its characters don't even have names, with Alan Ritchson taking the starring role as 81. See, every potential recruit is given a number in place of their identity, so we have a cast consisting of 7 (Stephan James), 44 (Alex King) and 15 (Blake Richardson), among others. Must be easier on the screenwriters than coming up with first and last names, or, gasp, middle ones!
As the film opens, we see 81, a Staff Sergeant, and his brother (Jai Courtney in a glorified cameo) get ambushed in Afghanistan. But right before the attack, the two decide to join RASP, which the interwebs tells me stands for "Ranger Assessment and Selection Program." His brother is killed from wounds sustained from the assault, so, stricken with guilt, enlists despite a knee injury. The man is a tank, passing every challenge thrown his way, remaining icy cold to his team but eluding any and all attempts to make him team leader. Then on the final week, those remaining embark on a fictitious mission, but right before they strap into their helicopters, his superior (Dennis Quaid) appoints him lead. Good luck dodging that, number 81!
They need to make it deep in the forest, locate and destroy a plane, pick up a P.O.W. and then make it back within twenty or so hours. When they find the plane, it doesn't look like any they've ever seen, but the group shrugs their collective shoulders and tries to blow it up anyway. That's bad news for them, because the aircraft isn't an aircraft, it's some sort of monster robot that quickly kills much of the troop. Those who weren't exploded by lasers swiftly scatter, but the giant hunk of murderous metal stalks them, blasting the survivors down a cliff. They soon find themselves at a raging riverside, they try crossing with ropes, but not before Mr. Deathbot finds them, sending the party down the angry waters and over a waterfall. Bet that wasn't in the recruitment brochure.
"War Machine" is a big, loud, dumb movie, and for almost the entire runtime, I was rooting alongside it. The action is frequent, well-staged and generally exciting, coming up with all sorts of different places for our band of nameless heroes to be turned into human stew. Sure, the characters are practically devoid of any personality outside of cliches (15 is a jokester, etc.,), but so what? Isn't the whole idea behind government armies conformity? Actually don't answer that.
But then there's the ending, the movie having somehow kept my interest right up until the last ten or so minutes. As I sat in my comfy couch, I enjoyed the mystery of wondering what this mayhem making mech could be, where it came from and why it was so good at blowing people up into little chunks of red flesh. I was thinking about the film on its own terms, instead of poking holes at its silly premise. But then writers Patrick Hughes (who also directed) and James Beaufort decided to give us an answer. Any answer would have been stupid, in fact. However, the one they went for is so hokey, so obviously trying to be a modern-day piece of feel-good military propaganda that it took me straight out of its goofy world of pulpy, commercial entertainment and into the real world. And that is a scary place to be.
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