Interceptor – Film Review

Matthew Reilly‘s Interceptor is one of the most fascinating movies of the entire year. It is absolutely absurd and completely ridiculous in virtually every single scene, but that’s honestly one of the biggest reasons why I had such a fun time watching it. The movie never once takes itself too seriously and that’s a great thing because if it did, this would have easily been one of the most embarrassing misfires of the entire year.

I’ve already seen plenty of people online calling this movie trash but, hear me out – this movie is one of the most fun times you can have watching a movie so far in the year. The script – written by Reilly and Stuart Beattie – gives us a simple concept with a simple and extremely formulaic plot. But they know it’s formulaic. They know it’s something we have seen done a million times before, but they make it fun with the dialogue and the action.

The dialogue here is insane. So many characters will say things that are the definition of try-hard badass movie character lines. It seemed as if Reilly and Beattie wanted to make every single quote in this movie the most badass quote imaginable. This may sound extremely cringe-worthy and tedious, but it’s actually kind of amusing and wholesome in a strange way.

But something that legitimately surprised me here was just how much tension the movie had. Deep down inside my brain, I knew where the story was going (because it’s easily one of the most predictable movies of the year), but that still didn’t stop me from being genuinely tensed up during pivotal moments.

And Reilly definitely knows how to direct action and make it look easy. I’m actually shocked by how great the action in this movie is, because, let’s be real, this is a Netflix movie. It seems as if there are five new Netflix original films a week, and so as a result, it is entirely possible for these films to just be churned out without any thought or care being put into the project. Thankfully, lots of care was put into the action here.

There isn’t a single scene of shaky cam – it’s all in camera. All of the punches and gunfire moments are incredibly fun to watch and smartly choreographed. Are they over the top in every conceivable way? You bet. But are these moments outstandingly entertaining to watch? Also, yes.

Nobody is going to watch Interceptor and say it’s one of the best movies ever made. Heck, nobody is going to say it’s one of the best movies of the last month even, but it’s still a highly enjoyable, ridiculous little action movie that I’m extremely happy even got made.