SHADOW IN THE CLOUD
New Zealand/US, 2020, 83 minutes, Colour.
Chloe Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Beulah Koale, Taylor John Smith, Callan Mulvey, Byron Wall, Byron Coll.
Directed by Roseanne Liang.
That was no shadow that was in the cloud!
This show needs to be seen to be disbelieved! A tone is set with an animated war propaganda short highlighting secrecy – but introducing the theme, and visuals, of gremlins interfering. The setting is 1943, World War II, the war in the Pacific, reference to Samoa and New Zealand. So far, perhaps, so good.
Sometimes celebrities, on winning awards, for instance, declare ecstatically that “never in my wildest dreams…�. Max Landis, the writer of this film and other action adventures, is the son of John Landis who, in his cinematic wildest dreams ranged from Animal House to American Werewolf in London! Now Max has gone well beyond - this screenplay is full of wildest dreams!
The star is Chloe Grace Moretz, who began her career as a teenager with vigorous action in Kick Ass. She has shown herself as versatile in a range of films and must have signed on for this one to be central to the whole action and to be an action hero with plenty of opportunities to kick ass. She enters wholeheartedly into the spirit of the show. Her name is Garrett.
However, for the first 15 minutes or so, after she unexpectedly boards a flight, to the hostility and suspicions of the crew, but presenting documents and credentials, she is relegated to the gunners whole for the takeoff, quite claustrophobic, looking down through a hole to earth far below, communicating, then not communicating to the captain, the crew becoming more and more suspicious, finding that there is no record of her for this mission. However, she is insistent, and has brought on board a case with a strap, declaring that it is all top-secret. (In this Me# Too era, it is surprising that there a lot of dialogue between the crew – thinking that they are not heard by Garrett, although she does – speak in the gross, sexist, harassing, misogynisticly leering locker room spirit. A defence is that that how men spoke back in 1943 motion Mark)
And then, we are definitely into the realm of superheroes, into the realm of creature menace, a vicious and large gremlin aggressively appearing and attacking, and some Japanese planes, one of whom Garrett fires on and demolishes.
While a lot of this defies disbelief, wildest dreams prevail, Garrett at one stage hanging precariously over the drop to earth holding on with one hand, but able to hoist herself up, in the meantime with her case strapped over her shoulder – and then, climbing along the bottom of the plane, using the shell holes to propel her, eventually reaching safety. One reaction might be – whew!
Even though the film is only 83 minutes, there is more to come, and the gremlin again, vicious attacks on the deaths of the crew, the death of the pilot, the audience finding that Garrett was bonding with one of the crew and the opening of the case to find – more than a surprise! You will not guess. The plane is damaged so the New Zealand co-pilot has to crash land the plane, manoeuvring upside down through New Zealand mountains, and eventually landing.
The ending is conventional enough though the survivors are isolated out in rugged territory – but, perhaps, the makers were intending a sequel.
Which means then that action fans may be overwhelmed and enjoy it, but audiences wanting some touches of credibility might find the whole thing somewhat absurd and ludicrous. Disbelief.
