Elevation (2024)
Elevation is A Quiet Place meets The Village meets Them! meets Zach Snyder meets The Matrix. Yeesh, that’s a lot.
Humans have been reduced to living at high elevations to avoid the monsters that have taken over the lower lands. As long as they stay over a certain line, they’re safe. No, they don’t have to wear yellow capes or anything like that.
Will is a single dad living with his son, Hunter in their tiny mountain village outside of Boulder, Colorado, and Hunter is, understandably, going a little stir-crazy. His dad tries his hardest to keep his son busy, but Hunter is the only kid in the village and badly wants to talk to someone his own age.
Dad, meanwhile, doesn’t want to lose Hunter the way he lost his wife, Tara. At the same time, though, he knows their way of life isn’t sustainable. The village has a limited supply of electricity, and Hunter, who has asthma, needs oxygen filters.
Will knows he needs to go to Boulder to get more filters from the hospital. His friends, Nina and Katie try to discourage him, but Will reminds Nina that she was researching how to kill the monsters and might want to go back to her old lab for supplies.
The three of them set off through a mine that Will used to work in, thinking secrecy is the trick, but things never go that easily because of course they don’t. There’s still hope, though. Nina keeps a pirate flag in her little mountain cabin just in case she figures out how to kill the monsters and wants to tell the world about it.
Elevation isn’t a bad movie. It’s not great, either. Anthony Mackie, who’s having quite the year, competently plays his part, although it felt as if he could have done more. He seems to have pretty nice platonic chemistry with his co-stars, and I liked that they didn’t try to tack on romance where there didn’t need to be. Quite honestly, it feels as if there isn’t time to get sidetracked.
Where the movie goes wrong is when it pulls a Zach Snyder and sets up later movies, leaving us in the meantime with a pretty weak finish and more questions than answers. At least nothing is filmed in slo-mo, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Elevation also plays on the cred quite a bit. The monsters destroyed mankind three years prior to the movie’s opening, yet the characters are able to fire up vehicles that have been sitting outside for that amount of time with no problem. No battery issues, no rotten tires, no rodents or insects in engines. Seeing as they’re all Ford products, maybe that storied motor company is trying to tell us something.
It’s a movie, of course. I just wish Elevation had resolved a little more cleanly instead of teasing a sequel that will probably never get made. Besides that, it’s a pleasant-enough ninety minutes.
Elevation is currently streaming on HBO Max. Rated R.
My grade: B+
Principal Cast: Anthony Mackie, Morena Baccarin, Maddie Hasson, Danny Boyd Jr., Rachel Nicks, Shauna Earp, Tyler Grey, Mike Hickman, Ian Hummel, Dave Malkoff, Drexel Malkoff, Dalila Orozco, James Anthony Perez, Gregg S. Perry
Directed by George Nolfi.
Written by John Glenn, Jacob Roman, and Kenny Ryan.