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With his 5th film, Duncan Jones reveals that he was ever much of a futurologist than a sci-fi guy, moreover though, for illustration nan films that preceded it, Rogue Trooper is different look into nan achromatic reflector of technology. Like father, for illustration son, you mightiness think, fixed that Jones’ celebrated begetter David Bowie ne'er met a ’topia he couldn’t hold to diss. But while location is really nary different overlap betwixt nan 2 artists’ work, it’s striking now that while Jones Sr. was very overmuch a glass-half-empty benignant of feline — “Five Years”, “Panic successful Detroit”, moreover “Space Oddity” — Jones Jr. is still successful thrall to nan wonders of what H.G. Wells was reasoning astir erstwhile he penned William Cameron Menzies’s Things To Come (1936).
In immoderate respects, Rogue Trooper is his Diamond Dogs (the conception album, not conscionable nan single), which Bowie modelled connected George Orwell’s 1948 caller 1984. Jones Jr., however, looked to a little apt oracle for nan ground of his first foray into full-blown animation — nan gritty cult UK comic book 2000AD — to manner a fast-paced, satirical, and often visually mind-blowing warfare movie that plays retired for illustration Starship Troopers arsenic made by René Laloux, nan Disney-gone-Dalí head of nan 1973 French cult classical Fantastic Planet.
First a fewer notes connected 2000AD and its spot successful British popular culture. While nan UK has ever had a very beardown contingent of science-fiction authors, their names seldom problem nan pantheon of awesome writers. 2000AD was ever astatine nan crisp extremity of that, arriving successful nan UK successful nan hiatus betwixt nan first and 2nd singles by punk legends nan Sex Pistols. Comic books until past had been strictly boys’-own adventures, pinch titles for illustration Eagle and Hotspur, that gave young boys support to revel successful nan grim 20th-century wars their fathers had fought in.
2000AD took nan shape of those aforesaid comic strips — dying figures pinch immense reside bubbles that shriek “AIIEE!!!” — but slyly subverted nan discourse to present an anti-war, anti-authoritarian message. Jones lays immoderate of this artistic successful nan opening credits, nan champion of nan twelvemonth alongside Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death astatine Camp Miasma: While Bear McCreary’s lingua successful cheek, faux-jingoistic taxable “The Rogue Trooper March” plays, Jones uses black-and-white frames from nan original comic-book, giving his head in installments a well-earned reside bubble that says, rather simply, “BTHOOM”!
Like astir post-Star Wars imagination movies, Rogue Trooper starts pinch a crawl, and this is simply a agelong one, which will possibly beryllium a deciding facet for audiences expecting a speedy hit. The premise is that, location acold away, 2 rival factions — nan Norts and nan Southers — are fighting complete nan toxic satellite Nu Earth. Vital to nan Southers’ conflict scheme is nan usage of familial infantrymen, a battalion of clones whose thoughts tin beryllium downloaded connected to a spot and reused if nan big assemblage is destroyed. It’s a reliable conception astatine first, but it does explicate really — aft a peculiarly convulsive opening ngo — platoon leader Rogue (Aneurin Barnard) comes into possession of a talking helmet (Daryl McCormack), a wise-cracking backpack (Reece Shearsmith), and a sentient weapon (Jack Lowden).
Like astir warfare films, nan warfare being fought by nan little downs is very different to nan warfare being fought by nan higher-ups, and erstwhile Rogue originates to fishy that his platoon has been sent down force lines by a traitor successful their midst, he decides to go… well, rogue. From here, nan movie becomes a fantastical Apocalypse Now-style travel upstream done nan hellhole of war, which takes Rogue done chaotic vignettes populated by a bid of grotesques, showing nan likes of Diane Morgan, Jemaine Clement and particularly Hayley Atwell (who plays nan ass-kicking Venus Bluegenes) arsenic you’ve ne'er seen them before.
The drama doesn’t ever land, conscionable arsenic it sometimes didn’t successful nan underrated Mute, but nan bold prime present is to spell broadly British and bathetic alternatively than ape nan progressively boring wisecracking style of nan Marvel/DC movies. Likewise, contempt nan filmmakers’ champion efforts, there’s still a fewer uncanny valleys to beryllium crossed, notably successful nan up-close, full-body fighting sequences, which punctual america really overmuch VFX isn’t quite location yet. On nan different hand, however, return a measurement backmost and nan world-building is jaw-dropping; connected a large screen, Rogue Trooper is almost overwhelming, and Barnard becomes an almost god-like beingness by nan extremity pinch his piercing achromatic eyes (don’t worry, it’s explained).
It’s not precisely going to support nan James Cameron who made Avatar up astatine night, but it perfectly is successful nan tone of nan sadly lesser-spotted James Cameron who made nan first Terminator movie. Who knows wherever it will return us? Will nan real early of futuristic futures commencement here? Let’s dream so.
