“Deep under the Arctic Ocean, American submarine captain Joe Glass (Gerard Butler) is on the hunt for a U.S. sub in distress when he uncovers a secret Russian coup threatening to dismantle the word order. With crew and country on the line, Captain Glass must now assemble an elite group of Navy SEALs to rescue the kidnapped Russian president and sneak through enemy waters to stop WWIII” – Official Synopsis
If you like to watch old action flicks to laugh at the bad effects and possibly worse writing, look no further.
I choose to believe that the writers for Hunter Killer had bingo cards in the writing room to see who can get as many action film cliches into the final script. The story itself isn’t that bad. The characters have fairly logical motivations and actions, but the writing is so cheesy I thought I was going to roll my eyes out of my skull.
Not every single scene in an action film needs to be life or death! With almost every other scene in this film the writers want you to think that the whole crew will die.
They hadn’t even made it to the dock to save the Russian president! Why would I, as an audience member, expect them to die in this minefield?
This film wouldn’t have to be two hours long if they cut out all of the “tense” fluff that was arbitrarily increasing the run time.
The special effects were less than great. The CGI looked laughably bad for 2018 and they used it everywhere. Now, I understand that they can’t go shooting torpedos at U.S. submarines, but I swear they even CGI-ed Gerard Butler’s arm when he was holding a bow at the beginning of the film.
When some of the Russian soldiers were firing on the Navy SEALs, they used literally the same graphic for every muzzle flash. Also, if the hardware in the cockpit of the submarine flung sparks everytime the submarine was rocked by a concussive blast, the crew might have larger issues than the blasts themselves.
The cinematography was rough. They were constantly zooming in and out to reframe the shot and just looked unprofessional for a feature film. Some of the shots in the cockpit of the submarine looked unintentionally campy as well. They looked more like the USS Enterprise than the USS Arkansas.
Also, at least one actor’s make-up was off. I have never noticed bad make-up before in my life, so that’s something new at least.
The acting honestly wasn’t bad from what I could tell. Any shortcomings were greatly overshadowed by the writing. It seemed as if the actors did the best they could with what they had.
