If you want some slick action entertainment that also feels smart and fresh then you need to look elsewhere. Interceptor is not interested in that. It's a ridiculous film that feels like a throwback to a time when every other straight-to-video title was a Die Hard rip-off. That works though, it's sometimes refreshing to watch a film that doesn't want to show off or reinvent action cinema. I'll rewatch every John Wick movie numerous times ahead of this, but I didn't resent the time spent watching this.
Elsa Pataky plays Captain J. J. Collins, an army officer who ends up being the one person in the way of a group of terrorists that want to take control of the remote missile interceptor (hence the title) station under her command. These terrorists possess a number of nuclear weapons, but to follow through on their threat to use those weapons they need to neutralise the interceptor system. Luke Bracey plays Alexander Kessel, the leader of the terrorists, and the film basically amounts to little more than Pataky versus Bracey for most of the runtime.
Ticking the boxes in a way that sometimes feels like it's bordering on parody, Interceptor is comforting in the familiarity it provides. Aside from the backstory that shows why some view Collins as "trouble", this does everything you expect. There are a number of disposable characters, there's someone due to make a major sacrifice when the time is right, there's an enemy who believes in the principles of his mission, and there's even a traitor who you can point to and call "traitor" from their first minute of screentime.
Debut director Matthew Reilly, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Stuart Beattie (a man with one or two modern classic tucked away in his back catalogue), does a good enough job, despite the fact that someone with a bit more experience may have been able to paper over some of the cracks. Give them their due though, Reilly and Beattie develop a backstory that both develops the central character and also comments on an ongoing problem within, but not exclusive to, the military.
The biggest problem, sadly, is the cast. Pataky isn't bad, and she ends up surprisingly convincing in some of the more ridiculous set-pieces, but she never feels like a strong enough lead (in any sense). Bracey suffers in a different way, his villain being played far too nice in between the occasional moments of ruthlessness. I don't want to name any other cast members because that will just make it even more obvious who is the traitor, who is there to make a noble sacrifice, and who is just standing around until they get shot in the face.
This is fun. No more, no less. It's never remotely believable. It's not as violent or as bloody as it could be. There's a slightly annoying, obviously intended to be cutesy, cameo for Chris Hemsworth (aka Mr. Pataky). It's as predictable as a Hallmark Christmas movie. But it's fun. Which is fine by me.
6/10
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