Great Netflix sci-fi war epic streaming now and no one seems to know about it

Stephen Porzio

The movie has been dubbed a ‘supernatural Black Hawk Down’.

Though it may be hard to imagine, there was once a time when Netflix wasn’t the cultural juggernaut it is today.

After all, the service only launched in Ireland and the UK in 2012 and only began releasing original TV shows in February 2013 and original movies in October 2015.

Now nearly all of Netflix’s releases are greeted with a lot of fanfare and coverage. But during their early years of producing original films as the company was rapidly growing – this wasn’t always the case.

As such, there are a good few hidden movie gems from this time period still lurking on the streaming giant, just waiting to be discovered.

In this bracket, we’d include the sci-fi The Discovery, the crime thriller Shimmer Lake, the gambling comedy drama Win It All and the latest in JOE’s Film Club Classics column Spectral.

Another sci-fi, except this time with elements of action, horror and war genres spliced into its story, Spectral mostly takes place in a Civil War-torn Moldova.

Amid the conflict, US Army Special Forces – led by Army General James Orland (Bruce Greenwood, House of Usher) and CIA officer Fran Madison (Emily Mortimer, Shutter Island) – have been covertly deployed into the country to support the Moldovan government as it battles insurgents of a former regime.

During their patrols in the war-torn state, however, the Americans find themselves under attack by more mysterious entities – ones which are invisible to the soldiers’ eyes but can be witnessed through their special hyperspectral imaging goggles.

Resembling ghosts, when these monstrous figures touch humans, the humans die in a way that defies explanation – with their internal organs found frozen but their skin found burned and corroded.

In response, the locals dub these entities ‘Aratare’ – meaning ‘as nightmarish as’. They believe the entities are literal ghosts of war – that the horrors of the conflict have spawned something supernatural.

Unsure how to face the threat, Madison and Orland seek out Mark Clyne (thinking man’s action hero James Badge Dale, The Empty Man), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) scientist who invented those special goggles.

Upon his arrival in Moldova, he is unable to explain the odd phenomena but suggests going back onto the streets of the Moldovan capital of Chișinău to capture a better quality video of the Aratare for research.

Whilst out on patrol though, Clyne and Madison’s Delta Force Team run into trouble and become stranded – leaving them in a battle for survival against an enemy which defies explanation.

Directed by commercials helmer Nic Mathieu in his feature debut (his only feature to date) and written by George Nolfi (The Adjustment Bureau), Spectral was described when it was announced as a “supernatural Black Hawk Down”.

A great pitch, the sci-fi was originally made on an estimated budget of $70 million for Universal Pictures to distribute. However, after initially setting a cinema release for Spectral, it was pulled from the company’s schedule for mysterious reasons before being snapped up by Netflix – who released it in December 2016.

While the reasons regarding why Universal Pictures decided to sell Spectral to Netflix remain unknown, watching the end product – one wonders if it was a similar situation to why previous JOE Film Club Classics pick Annihilation was sold by Paramount to Netflix in some territories.

Like Annihilation, Spectral is quite sombre. Not every character viewers expect to survive does. Some perish very suddenly.

While this may risk turning viewers looking for a more standard shoot-em-up away, it does feel appropriate for a movie very much about war – particularly how amazing scientific advancements often wind up being used as instruments of destruction in such conflicts.

This is a theme Mathieu and Nolfi cleverly establish in the early scenes of Clyde and a colleague (Stephen Root, Get Out) at DARPA’s headquarters in the US before returning to it as the – quite disturbing – explanation for what exactly the Aratare are is revealed.

Also like Annihilation, Spectral isn’t afraid of getting too scientific with its sci-fi – another quality that could turn away casual viewers but does make the movie stand out from its contemporaries.

After spending two-thirds of its runtime wondering if the killer entities are literal ghosts – a very gripping mystery, honestly – the film does provide to the viewer a definitive answer rooted in scientific concepts – albeit, as Mathieu notes, with “a lot of liberties” taken.

In fact, the director has even described Spectral to Ars Technica as “a tribute to the scientific method disguised as an action movie”.

He explained:

“The key point, if you are analysing the science of Spectral, is that the main character is a scientist and he uses science to overcome a situation where brute force keeps failing.

“In the true spirit of the scientific method, he initially refuses to give a diagnosis until he has sufficient evidence. [He’s] ‘comfortable not knowing’ even in the face of pressure.

“Once he’s able to make an educated guess based on empirical evidence, his insight enables [the soldiers] to build the right arsenal to fight back.”

But whereas Annihilation – which is also about a scientist entering a zone filled with odd phenomena – was light on action but strong on vibes, Spectral’s more military-focused story does set the scene for a string of memorable action set-pieces.

For example, there’s the very tense apartment block rescue mission raid early on where a squad of soldiers are caught off guard by the Aratare, while realising to their shock that bullets don’t work against them.

There’s also the terrifically staged climactic siege where, after realising how to inflict damage on the Aratare – Orlean’s men take the fight to them.

The film is perhaps not perfect – some moments where dialogue noticeably doesn’t match the lip movement of certain actors suggests some shaky post-production tweaks.

That said, it does deserve to be more well-known as it’s the type of film that both science lovers and those looking to unwind with an action movie on a Friday night can equally enjoy. Given its accessibility on Netflix, perhaps it can still find a greater audience.

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