So it’s Halloween, and Netflix’s new action thriller Soulcatcher, directed by Daniel Markowicz, seems as good of a movie to review as any.
And it’s … not great.
The Plot
Somewhere in Poland in modern times, a pair of private military contractors, the brothers Kiel (Piotr Witkowski) and Piotr (Michal Burdan), are hired to rescue the young and beautiful Eliza Mazur (Michalina Olszanska) from a gang of thugs. While they’re on the way out, however, the three see their hostage mission quickly turn into a literal zombie apocalypse, as they’re attacked by hordes of ravenous civilians.
As it turns out, Eliza’s father, Professor Witold Mazur (Jacek Poniedzialek) has invented a device called that was supposed to cure cancer, but instead turns people into zombies. (Don’t you just hate it when the device that you invented to cure one of mankind’s most feared and deadly illnesses just winds up turning people into mindless, inhuman monsters?) Now, tons of people want the Soulcatcher for their own nefarious purposes (apparently not considering the risk of their own zombification), so Kiel, Eliza, and their allies must mount a dangerous rescue mission.
Piotr Witkowski in ‘Soulcatcher’
So, Where Exactly Does Soulcatcher Go Wrong?
By being practically a paint-by-numbers action move. It stars a rugged mercenary (check) who must go on not one but two dangerous rescue missions (double check), in order to retrieve a powerful weapon that could have massive consequences if it was allowed to fall into the wrong hands (check).
At this point, you might be wondering what it is that Soulcatcher does differently. Perhaps it has wonderful characterizations that allow its simplistic and formulaic plot to deliver an extra little bit of emotional heft. Perhaps there’s some sort of twist we’re not telling you. At the very least, it has expertly choreographed action sequences and jaw-dropping special effects, right?
Well, the last one is sort of true, at least. We wouldn’t call any part of this movie jaw-dropping or stellar, but the stung sequences and visual effects are good. We can say that much.
The problem is that there are an awful lot of action movies that have good special effects and fight scenes – and those have good characters and original plots, as well. And that’s not even counting the bizarre plot elements. Why does the Soulcatcher turn people into zombies, anyway? If it was invented to cure cancer, how did it go so wrong? That’s never explained.
You can do a lot better than Soulcatcher. Perhaps if you’re a big action fan, you’ll enjoy it. Perhaps if you really need an action movie right now, it’ll do the trick. But most people can do better.
Soulcatcher is streaming now on Netflix.