THE STORY – 19, a ‘Genetic Infantryman’, finds himself the sole survivor of an invasion force. Desperate to track down the traitor who sold him and his comrades out, the super soldier is accompanied by three killed-in-action squad mates, whose personalities have been stored in his gun, helmet, and backpack.
THE CAST – Aneurin Barnard, Jack Lowden, Reece Shearsmith, Matt Berry, Jemaine Clement, Daryl McCormack, Rob Delaney, Diane Morgan, Asa Butterfield, Hayley Atwell, Sean Bean
THE TEAM – Duncan Jones (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 125 Minutes
A staple of British sci-fi, the weekly comic book magazine “2000 AD”, which provided early career opportunities for people like Alan Moore, Grant Morrison and Garth Ennis, is best known internationally as the home of Judge Dredd’s regular run-ins with lawbreakers. Its other major recurring character, with cult status in the UK, is the Rogue Trooper, created by Gerry Findley-Day and Dave Gibbons: a genetically modified soldier sent on a dangerous mission on a hostile planet. And now, thanks to Duncan Jones of “Moon” and “Source Code” fame, his military exploits are the subject of a feature film, an animated endeavor created via performance capture.
The story takes place on a planet called Nu-Earth, where a brutal war rages on between Nortsand Southers. The latter have come up with a way to deal with the increasingly poisonous atmosphere (a result of the weapons used in the conflict): the ‘Genetic Infantryman’, or GI for short. Engineered to withstand the harsh conditions that would kill regular people, these blue-skinned soldiers – visually reminiscent of another Gibbons creation, Dr. Manhattan -also have a biochip in their head, making them functionally immortal: in the event of death, these chips, after being temporarily stored inside everyday military objects, are implanted in new bodies, which retain the memories of the old ones.
Because they are, in a way, cannon fodder, these troopers do not have proper names, and the protagonist is known only as 19 (Aneurin Barnard). During a particularly perilous mission, he’s the last man standing and realizes there must be a traitor within the Souther ranks, conspiring with the Norts. As he makes his way through the desert and tries his best to stay alive, his company consists mainly of three deceased comrades in arms whose chips currently reside in his helmet, gun, and backpack; hence their names: Helm (Daryl McCormack), Gunnar (Jack Lowden), and Bagman (Reece Shearsmith). Meanwhile, above the planet, his superiors (Sean Bean and Diane Morgan) try to figure out their next move, unaware of what’s happened due to the strong inclement weather affecting communication range.
First published in 1981, the original comic – whose panels and covers are a good reason to stay put during the end credits – blended elements of different existing wars to satirize them, and the film retains that aspect. In fact, it builds on this via casting and characterization: calling the two warring factions Norts and Southers, an obvious play on the American Civil War, gains an extra level of very British irony through the fact that most of the Southers – the nominal good guys – are played by actors with Northern English accents of varying thickness(with some Welsh, Scottish and Irish thrown in for good measure). Conversely, the two main speakers with more ‘refined’ tones are two untrustworthy fellas played by Jemaine Clement and Matt Berry. Sadly, the latter does not call anyone a ‘devious bastard’ on this occasion.This is, from beginning to end, a very English undertaking, and arguably the first truly homegrown film for the London-born Jones, whose previous work, while occasionally co-produced by UK companies, had a very Hollywood feel, not least in terms of casting. For this project, he teamed up with Rebellion Developments, a video game company whose production facilities were used for shooting (while Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 was used for the animation process), not to mention the sister company of Rebellion Publishing, which purchased the rights to the comic magazine (appropriately enough in the year 2000).
There’s a palpable love for the source material, with comic book-style description boxes to set up the plot at the beginning and the aforementioned panels and covers displayed during the final credits. The choice to use performance capture is similar to how Steven Spielberg approached “The Adventures of Tintin”: there’s a pulpy energy that live-action can’t replicate in full, in addition to the practicalities of rendering the unconventional characteristics of the GIs. On the flipside, this does come with an occasional uncanny valley effect for the human characters, particularly in scenes involving the military high command, which come across as though Robert Zemeckis had applied his notoriously divisive “Polar Express” aesthetic to the RDA sequences in the “Avatar” franchise.
The Britishness of it all might also lead to some lines being more difficult to grasp for viewers not used to UK slang, but those are minor moments in an otherwise very propulsive movie that grabs viewers and throws them into the brutal chaos from the get-go, via a bravura sequence involving a sniper that is the ideal hybrid of “Full Metal Jacket” and any sci-fi story set on worlds with harsh, treacherous landscapes. And while there is no obvious sequel bait, one can assume potential follow-up stories have not been ruled out, given the character’s long and sometimes convoluted editorial history. Or, given the people involved behind the scenes, it could set the tone for further adaptations of tales from the “2000 AD” canon, creating a healthy British alternative to the Marvel/DC hegemony as far as the English-speaking market is concerned.
