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From director George Nolfi (The Adjustment Bureau, The Banker) comes the weirdly small-scale sci-fi actioner Elevation, set in a what I guess is a post-apocalyptic world in which monstrous creatures have emerged from beneath the earth’s surface and killed most of the population of the planet in a few short weeks.
The only thing that can stop these creatures is height; specifically they can’t seem to survive at an elevation above 8000 feet, so what few humans that still exist are living in colonies in mountainous areas. In the case of Anthony Mackie’s Will and his young son Hunter (Danny Boyd Jr.), they live in the Rocky Mountains in a small community that seems to be able to sustain itself year-round.
The only hiccup is that Hunter has breathing issues that require him to use an oxygen machine that uses filters that have to be replaced every so often. Will is running dangerously low, to the point where he must venture to the nearest city (Boulder, which isn’t actually that near by) to a hospital where he’s fairly certain boxes of these filters are stored. Along his journey, he’ll be required to dip below 8,000 feet for short periods of time, leaving him vulnerable to attack. Apparently the creatures can’t see but they can detect CO2 emissions from humans. Someone has also noticed that the creatures don’t eat people; they simply kill them. Why might that be?
Morena Baccarin plays the abrasive Nina, another resident where Will and Hunter live who is testing out theories about how to penetrate the creatures’ apparently impenetrable, armor-like surface. Her experiments are going frustratingly poorly, and she agrees to accompany Will because she can gather further supplies to help with her testing while they’re in Boulder. Nina and Will’s late wife were close at one point, until Nina led a small party on a supply run that got the wife killed—something for which Will has never forgiven Nina.
Another resident, Katie (Maddie Hasson), makes the party a trio, and she wants in for the simple reason that she wants to help Hunter. The three make their way to Boulder and end up in some exceedingly dangerous situations in old mines, barely functional aerial trams, or in open fields where running is the only option. So many of the rules of Elevation feel like they are variations of what has already been established in A Quiet Place that it’s a bit embarrassing how obvious the similarities are. And one sequence in which the humans avoid detection by simply holding their breath for a couple minutes, thus not emitting any CO2, seems ridiculous to the point of being laughable.
Some of the risks this small team takes seem unnecessarily dangerous, and so many of the perils that befall them could be easily solved if they just found a functioning car and drove moderately fast—something that does eventually happen near the end of the film. The creatures reveal a few secrets about themselves that make their behavior make more sense, but the idea that Nina is literally looking for a magic bullet to solve all of their problems seems like lazy writing and results in one of the dumbest endings of any movie this year. I guess the creature design is interesting, but it doesn’t come close to making Elevation anything close to compelling.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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