20 Recent Movies WAY Better Than They Had Any Right To Be
15. War Machine
Nobody's going to profess that War Machine is a particularly smart or super-memorable sci-fi action flick, and considering it felt like Netflix was sending this one out to die without much of a marketing push, there wasn't much reason to expect anything good from it.
Yet there's something to be said for an efficient meat-and-potatoes slice of adrenalised carnage, and in that respect War Machine more than delivers the goods.
Filmmaker Patrick Hughes refreshingly ditching excessive, laboured character development and exposition in favour of an in-the-trenches treatment as a squad of soldiers face off against an otherworldly killing machine.
The focus is trained almost exclusively on suspenseful, visceral action, further elevated by a typically grizzled performance from Alan Ritchson as our steely protagonist.
War Machine nods unashamedly to the films that inspired it - especially Predator - yet soars far higher than its mediocre marketing would've let anyone believe pre-release.