Outside the Wire

Netflix should have picked a better movie to start their, new movie a week in 2021, then this one. In the pre-streaming era of movies this would have been a direct to video release that no one would have ever saw. This movie is nothing but a B-Level movie.
There is just so much wrong with this movie. First off the CGI is trash. At zero point does anything CGI related even remotely good or real. The robot soldiers(I think they were guppies or some ****, I really don’t know or care what their names are) in this have the same special effects as the big robot from Robocop. Which is sad because Robocop is over 30 years old and they are equal in crap. Anthony Mackie’s robot body isn’t much better either. It just looks so cheesy and fake. A second issue with this movie is the secondary acting and casting. None of the characters in the military here feel or look like actual soldiers. These might be the most unconvincing soldiers I have ever seen in a movie. Damson Idris is also not good at all in this movie. He has no emotions thorough out the whole movie. He was just kind of there with his eyes bulging out of his head the whole time. At times when he needed to show compassion (like in the end when he is trying to stop Mackie), he shows none at all. He didn’t really show anger either. He was just kind of there not adding anything at all. Having a better actor in there that could show off some sort of emotion may have helped this movie be a little bit more watchable. A third, final and probably the biggest issue with this movie is the writing of it. Here are some examples.

Mackie being a robot: They frame him as some sort of badass super soldier but at no point do they showcase this. Less talk of him being badass and more showing it off.

Unclear about his backstory: Was he made exclusively as a robot or was he once a man and something happened where he needs the robot parts to live. So basically is this a Robocop remake and they just set it in a war or nah dude?

Wasted villain: How the **** do you have villain in a movie for only one scene? Seriously that was such a ****ing waste. Just have Mackie be the bad guy the whole time because there was no need for any of that bull**** with him turning bad.
I also go on about the whole anti-war theme they went with in the end but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that war is bad and should be avoided. They are really taking a gamble with that bold stance.
Not everything is wrong with this movie though. Anthony Mackie is really strong here. He certainly tries his best but cant cover up the pitfalls that plague this movie. He had the anger when he needed it. He showed a range of emotions and he was entertaining to watch through out the whole movie. There is some solid action scenes in here as well. One of the first war scenes with Mackie and Damson is pretty good and it was a decent shootout. The other one was the bank firefight. The robot shootout was pretty solid. Not amazing but solid. Also having Mackie take on another (again I think they were called guppies or some **** but **** if I know) robot in the bank made for a decent fight sequence.
This is nothing but a B-level movie that doesn’t even do a good enough job staying entertaining. Subpar acting and bad writing hurt this movie. For Anthony Mackie this is no way to start a solo career outside of the MCU fame he had built. 4/10