While travelling with top-secret documents
on a B-17 Flying Fortress, a female WWII pilot encounters an evil presence on
board.
Director: Roseanne Liang
Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, Taylor John Smith,
Nick Robinson, Beulah Koale, Callan Mulvey
Release Date:
Genre: Action, Horror, War
Rated R for language throughout, sexual
references and violence
Runtime: 1 h 23 min
Review:
There’s a clear
point in Roseanne Liang gonzo Shadow in the Cloud where you’ll either check out
or go all in with the nuttiness on screen.
Its first half is deliberately paced serving as a wonderful showcase for
Chloë Grace Moretz talents. She’s always
been an engaging actress whose deserving of a bigger spotlight, this film isn’t
nearly good enough to give her a solid boost.
The film itself is a hodgepodge of ideas mashed up into a strange
B-Movie where Moretz’s character battles sexual stereotypes, gremlins, the
Japanese and motherhood. Once the film
decides to go all in with it’s insanity, it’s best to throw any semblance of
logic out the window because the film doesn’t care if any of what you see makes
any sense. You get the sense that in the
hands of a better filmmaker there might be a better film in there
somewhere. Unfortunately Roseanne Liang,
who heavily rewrote Max Landis’s original screenplay, just isn’t that talented
as a filmmaker. The 2nd half
is clunky on various levels which leaves the movie feeling more like one of the
nameless direct to video movies that pepper streaming services. At the very least, Chloë Grace Moretz makes
Shadow in the Cloud far more watchable than it deserves to be.
C-
