Pure, Unadulterated Blockbuster Cinema
It would be a vast understatement to call Hope anything less than a lot of a movie. A genre-blending, over-the-top, no-holds-barred action sci-fi thriller of the most epic proportions, the likes of which seem poised to draw a line straight down the middle for audiences. On one end, you have those who embrace Na Hong-Jin’s go-for-broke filmmaking and truly awesome spectacle. On the other, the PS2 CGI and increasingly silly plot reveals are enough to alienate viewers and leave them scratching their heads, wondering what the hell they just watched.
Hope dazzles as much as it disappoints. Its electric first hour – framed with stunning practicality, beautifully designed wreckage and edge-of-your-seat action set pieces – is undone by a bizarre second hour that all but abandons the foundational strengths laid out in the first. The longer it goes, the more it starts to lose its way and ultimately turns the entire film into a prologue. Hope is a collection of good and bad choices; some of the most riveting action ever put on film juxtaposed against the worst VFX and baffling story beats this side of 2002. Though many would approach it as an all-or-nothing kind of film, Hope left me right smack in the middle. I both loved and hated Hope in equal measure, hoping to let go of some of my hangups and enjoy the ride but incapable of dismissing its flaws outright.
Small Town Living, Big Alien Problems
In the small, remote town of Hope Harbor, South Korea, Police Chief Ko Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-Min) is called to investigate a mauled animal blocking the road. A group of hunters who discovered it are baffled by the unexplained and brutal kill markings, and decide to head into the forest to track down the creature. Ko heads to the village to warn civilians, only to discover the town has been all but laid to waste. Destruction is everywhere and it soon becomes clear that the source is not a creature from this world. Aliens have come to Hope Harbor, and each new discovery and encounter uncovers more about not just them but humanity as well. It’s a fight for survival as the mystery that unfolds reveals that we are not alone and there is more than one monster in the woods.
The Best Blockbuster First Half You’ll See This Year
For the first 50-60 minutes, you won’t find a more riveting and masterfully crafted blockbuster. Hope is at its best when it’s simply building tension and keeping much of its more revelatory plot points close the chest. Na Hong-Jin expertly tightens the noose of intrigue with breathtaking thrills and a heavy dose of small-town humor. Our human protagonists make all of their decisions out of ignorance and hubris, making their desperation for survival all the more fascinating and captivating. It’s awe-inspiring production design and expertly staged action set pieces that set Hope apart from its genre hybrid counterparts. The first hour is pure, edge-of-your-seat cinema, fueled by adrenaline and a bracing sense of dread around every dark corner and destroyed building.
When its focus is on the ground and centered on our hapless human heroes, Hope is as a good as anything in the genre. The forest sequences (they do come late in the second half but I’m counting it here because they feel like remnants of the best ideas from the first) with chases on horses is straight up some of the most inventive, eye-popping action scenes I’ve ever seen. Hope possesses plenty of these moments, the kind that make you sit back and say, “ok ya, that was cool as hell.” Sometimes all you need is a good old-fashioned thrill ride, and Hope’s first half has that in spades. The craft is spectacular, and the set up is expertly paced as a powder keg ready to explode.
A Flaw Riddled Second Half
All of that first hour praise is undone by a back half that seems to shed everything that made Hope great to begin with, ambitiously grasping for something out of reach. I can usually forgive bad VFX, and there’s almost enough goodwill here to have me do so. But when you pair it with where the film eventually goes and how it leaves you, the CGI starts to become unforgivable.
I heard mine were an improvement over what was shown at Cannes, and that unfortunately didn’t instill me with much hope – no pun intended. They’re still shoddy at best, and being one of the most expensive South Korean films ever made it seems strange that they would skimp on a key tenet of a gigantic sci-fi epic in which good effects are paramount to the film’s effectiveness. They’re BAD bad, enough to take you out of the film entirely the minute the focus shifts to them.
It’s not just that Hope’s CGI looks horrendous, but also what Na Hong-Jin chooses to do with them. If Hope simply built upon the established world, you would have one of the best sci-fi blockbusters of the year. Instead, the film increasingly pivots away from our human protagonists and their misunderstandings of the world around them and latches onto an unexplained alien world around them. It reveals nothing but pats itself on the back for its shift, one that is never made fully clear to the audience and leaves them without answers.
It’s not even sequel bait – that would require some inkling of coherence and some kind of groundwork laid to look forward to. Hope ends with thud and a head-scratching conclusion informed by nothing in the previous 2+ hours. Sure, Hope is open-ended in its conclusion, but given that we don’t know anything about the road it leaves us on its hard to imagine a desire to continue down the path. It’s hard to talk about it without spoiling it, but trust me when I tell you I haven’t been able to make heads or tails of its final 5-10 minutes.
Final Thoughts
There’s a lot to admire about Hope, and for all my negative views of its VFX I can also recognize the risk and reward Na Hong-Jin for trying something so far out of his wheelhouse. But ambition doesn’t automatically equal success, and while I’m sure there was a ton of work that went into the motion capture and creature design (all of the non-asian actors are unrecognizable beneath their alien looks and unless someone told you it was them you would have no idea) the final result fails to reflect the effort. And where Hope eventually takes you may be a leap too far for many, myself included. I walked out thinking that was a blast but also, what TF was that?
The good mostly outweighs the bad, and for all its flaws Hope is journey worth taking even if it’s just to say you’ve experienced what it has to offer. It is a balls-to-the-wall wild ride; funny, thrilling, dazzling but also bizarre, undercooked, and a ittle too ambitious in the back half to fully succeed. Also, not the point but Jung Ho-yeon is incredibly badass here and I may or may not have a new crush.
It may have let me down a bit, but I can’t pretend like I won’t be seated for Hope: Here we Hope Again.
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