Soulcatcher Review: Directed by Daniel Markowicz and written by Markowicz and Dawid Kowalewicz, the Polish action-thriller film, originally known as Operacja: Soulcatcher, stars Piotr Witkowski, Jacek Koman, Jacek Poniedzialek, Mariusz Bonaszewski, Aleksandra Adamska, Vansh Luthra and others. The film has a runtime of 98 minutes.
– Soulcatcher Review Does Not Contain Spoilers –
Soulcatcher Plot
Kiel and Piotrek, working as mercenaries with a private military company, embark on a mission to retrieve an experimental weapon that turns its victims into senseless killing machines. However, when his own brother falls victim to the machine, Kiel seeks revenge on those who are responsible.
Soulcatcher Review
When an action-thriller movie starts with the unfortunate death of a loved one by a loved one, you know it’s not kidding around about anything. And it doesn’t – there is a lot of gunfire all around, a lot of fights, blood and death. As well as a weird machine that turns people into blood-hungry fighting monsters who will stop at nothing until they murder everyone.
Although the premise seems to be quite the action-packed insanity, the reality of the situation is that the action-thriller has a water-thin plot that tries to make do with as many loud action sequences as possible. The tragic death of a loved one, followed by the need for revenge and being betrayed by those we trusted, are the basic plot points of the movie. It’s a solidly cliched affair that wants to stay as such. Putting a futuristic death machine in the middle of it doesn’t stop it from being extremely mediocre, if that.
The thing with Soulcatcher is that only the device is the most interesting aspect of it; other than that, the storyline is just the same as in every mid-tier action movie. Lots of guns and fighting and a revenge plot of some kind. Unfortunately for Soulcatcher Netflix, the action sequences aren’t even good, and there is much to be desired from them. The CGI blood looks horrendous and almost funny, and the gunshots (and guns) look fake. It takes you right out of the watching experience since nothing about this movie really sticks.
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The payoff for any and all of these sequences is too convenient. Before you even start to feel attached (which you don’t), you are immediately given a solution that quenches your thirst. The characters are too shallow for you even to care one bit, and they are not given proper arcs of any kind. Maybe this isn’t the movie where you are supposed to care about the people and all that but not even knowing who they are feels like a bit of a cop-out.
In the brief glimpses of characters that we get to see in Soulcatcher, Piotr Witkowski plays his part well enough. The others are fine as well, although we get to know no one – none of the characters are interesting or have anything to them. They just shoot guns and care about each other, I guess. There’s also a romance angle in there for some odd reason – it comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere as well. Unfortunately, the dubbing is horrendously bad in some sequences, especially when the characters speak in English… which seems unnecessary as well, so I don’t know why they were necessary.
Soulcatcher Review: Final Thoughts
There’s nothing remotely interesting about this action flick that is far too conveniently made for it to be thrilling or engaging. There are no twists, the action sequences are quite bad, and the dubbing is horrendous as well. There are better action thrillers out there that, even though they make little to no sense, are hella entertaining to watch.
Soulcatcher is streaming on Netflix.
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