“Elevation”: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller With No Imagination

The new thriller starring Anthony Mackie and Morena Baccarin doesn’t bring much originality to the tired post-apocalyptic genre.

Summary

In a world dominated by apex predators called Reapers, most of humanity has been exterminated. The few survivors live in small communities that are 8,000 feet or more above sea level—elevations where the creatures, for some reason, cannot reach them.

Will (Anthony Mackie) lives in one of these communities with his son, Hunter. The child has a lung disease and requires oxygen filters to survive. When their supply of filters starts to run out, Will has to embark on a mission to acquire more, which means venturing to lower zones, where the risks of being attacked are high. For this, he will count on the help of Nina (Morena Baccarin), a former scientist trying to create a weapon to defeat the Reapers.

Nothing New, Nothing Special

I was not expecting a film that rebuilt the genre, by any means, but Elevation lacks the imagination to prop itself even an inch above the generic sci-fi low-budget production. From the very beginning, it’s easy to see where the movie is going, guess all the twists, and even predict every character’s destiny. I knew who was going to die on the road even before the mission began.

For starters, I’m of the opinion that post-apocalyptic fiction needs to take a rest. It used to be a favorite of mine, but ever since the pandemic, it has become way too believable for my liking. There are many things in our modern world that seem very post-apocalyptic to me, so the genre does not work as well for entertainment and escapism as it used to, at least for me.

Character Development is Key

But if you’re doing it, then you should do it right. And one of the most interesting things in a post-apocalyptic story is how the characters are written, especially if you can’t rely on a huge budget. These are people who are taken to the limit; they don’t live, they just survive, and exploring how difficult it is not to lose your humanity in a world where everything you know has collapsed is a great topic. It’s the easiest way to create a connection with the audience, make them wonder what they would do in that situation, and side with certain characters.

In Elevation, the characters are not well fleshed out, and the relationships between them don’t have much depth. As a result of that, you don’t really care whether they achieve their mission or not. That’s a huge flaw when your film is a thriller, because you want your audience to be at the edge of their seats, and that won’t happen unless there’s something at stake.

The actors do what they can; they’re actually not bad at all, but the script just doesn’t give them a lot to work with. Dialogues are quite bland and redundant, bringing their performances down. The special effects are pretty bad, at least to be watched on a big screen.

The Plot Twist: It Could Have Worked

It’s annoying when projects waste an interesting idea with bad execution. In Elevation’s case, I’m convinced it would have meant a drastic improvement for the film.

All the protagonists know about the Reapers is that they attack humans exclusively, but they have no interest in eating them. That is to say, they don’t hunt for food. They never rest, and they are immune to all human weapons. Nina has spent years trying to figure out what kind of creatures they are, in hopes of creating something to kill them.

These observations are important because they are connected to the biggest twist in the film, which happens in the last ten minutes: our heroes discover that the Reapers are not biological creatures, but machines. Nina has a sudden rush of inspiration and realizes they can be killed with bullets laced in cobalt. They make it home safe and alert the rest of the human communities. The movie ends with all the survivors joining efforts to recover their home.

So the creatures are machines. Alright. That explains why they were so difficult to eliminate. But what are they doing there? Who built them? Who programmed them? What is the objective of killing humans? That was the most interesting thing! Half of the film could have explored that. A brief post-credits scene shows the protagonists observing strange lights in the sky, so I suppose aliens are responsible?

Box Office Performance

Unfortunately, if we consider the box office performance of this film, I don’t believe we’ll ever find out what the aliens wanted.

Elevation stayed in theaters for two weeks in the U.S., earning $2.321.801. Internationally, the film arrived a few weeks later to some countries, where it has grossed only $888.510 so far. The production budget apparently was about $18.000.000, so we shouldn’t expect part two.

That being said, the film has the redeemable quality of being modestly entertaining. Not worth a movie ticket, but good enough to watch at home on a Sunday afternoon. If you enjoy a post-apocalyptic story, or if you’re an Anthony Mackie fan, I dare say you’ll have a decent time.