Survivor tells the story of Kate Abbott (Milla Jovovich), a foreign service officer working at the US Embassy in London. She has a history of foiling terrorist attacks, and her instincts lead her to suspect that a certain Dr. Emil Balan isn’t being entirely honest in his application for a visa. Her superiors disagree, but this only pushes her to dig deeper. Unfortunately her persistence puts her on the radar of some very bad people. An assassin known as the Watchmaker (Pierce Brosnan) frames her for a terrible crime. Rather than surrender herself to the authorities, Kate goes on the run to uncover the truth and prevent a major terrorist attack.
Survivor is often at odds with itself. It could have been a pulpy thriller, one that basically capitalizes on the sheer fun of pitting Milla Jovovich against Pierce Brosnan. And there are sections of the movie that kind of deliver on that possibility. On the other hand, it seems to have this desire to be tied to the real world in some way. It keeps trying to call upon the gravity of real life events, at one point using actual footage from 9/11 to provide context for the character’s motivations. And at the very end, it features text talking about the very real efforts of anti-terrorist agencies in keeping the world safe.
These two aspects of the film simply don’t complement each other. They get in the way of each other, if anything. It feels completely tasteless, for example, for them to use the footage of a real-life attack, when the film paints out a fictional terrorist scenario that involves a measure of science fiction and melodramatic villainous motivations. The film insists on a gritty, reality-based core, but it’s all wrapped in a ridiculous action movie package that doesn’t properly reflect real life.
If one can ignore that disparity, one is still left with a pretty lackluster movie. It gets off to a pretty rocky start with shoddy visual effects ruining its very first sequence. It then goes on to field a story that never really clicks into place. There are points where Kate’s choices don’t make any sense. Kate is often put into a position where it would be more reasonable to get in contact with the authorities, or with any of the people she actually trusts. But the film insists on having this heroine head into dangerous situations on her own.
Not that it ever really feels like she’s in any actual danger. James McTeigue’s direction is stylish and kinetic, but it often fails to build tension. The film does get a boost from its star. Milla Jovovich always looks like she’s having fun in movies, the actress finding plenty of joy in action movie machinations. But she isn’t enough to make the movie worth seeing, especially as she is surrounded with a cast of overqualified who seem very aware of the fact that they are overqualified. Pierce Brosnan looks slightly embarrassed to be part of the picture, and mostly scowls through the entire experience. Angela Bassett and Robert Forster are clearly wasted on roles that are mainly there to provide exposition.
Survivor would be a better movie if it forgot about the real world for a bit. It had the right stars for something fun and ridiculous. It’s not hard to imagine a fizzy action film that has Milla Jovovich having to take on a former James Bond. The movie actually has elements of a James Bond film, right down to the villainous master plan that involves some sort of scientific and economic gobbledygook that is never fully explained. But the 9/11 footage rears its ugly head, and the film starts pretending to something that it clearly is not.
My Rating:
