I’ve been excited for Onslaught for months now. The latest release from A24 is an action movie focused on Celeste, a military vet and mother played by Adria Arjona, repelling an invading team of super soldiers from her trailer park. Cool premise, right? That’s why I was so excited. Unfortunately, the movie really fell flat for me in a couple of ways, and those ways really dragged it down.
What Kind Of Movie Is This?
The biggest issue I had with the movie is that it feels all over the place. It’s an action movie, and the action actually really works. It’s also a horror movie. And a comedy. And a thriller. Individually, all those things kind of work in the movie, but it’s trying to be too many things at once, and I got whiplash as the tone was constantly switching. The gore of the horror element is really gory (in a good way). As I said, the action is intense. It’s also thrilling. The campy nature of the comedy didn’t land with me, and every time there was a cheesy line, I rolled my eyes and got pulled out of the scene.
It’s hard when movies try to be all the things, and Onslaught feels that way. Had it just focused on being a really cool action movie, the cheesy lines might have worked, I think. I mean, I love old Schwarzenegger movies with all his cheesy lines. That kind of dialogue can become iconic. However, this movie is too dark for the cheese to work. And if the cheesy dialogue wasn’t meant to be campy, well, then I really don’t like it. This is a movie about a mom protecting her home and her young daughter. It’s not Arnie in the jungle taking out cartoonish terrorists. Speaking of which…
The Movie Didn’t Need The Daughter
Recently I was listening to a podcast, and the host was talking about movies that put children in harm's way to elicit an emotional response from viewers when it is unneeded. He described it as manipulative. That’s how I felt about the daughter (played wonderfully by Blake Kennedy) in Onslaught. The plot didn’t need the character. It totally works without putting her being in danger, and yeah, it felt manipulative. If the movie was just about a badass ex-military vet repelling the super soldiers, all the elements could remain. It would still be a cool action movie, but it wouldn’t have the added, unnecessary element of the mom protecting an innocent child.
Of the many elements that felt forced in Onslaught, this was the most egregious to me. It’s too bad, too, because this is an example of a movie’s whole not living up to the sum of its parts. It’s a really cool story, and it’s well directed, with great pacing. The acting performances are great, not just from the leads, but from the supporting actors as well. The special effects are cool, and the weird twist at the beginning of the movie that I wasn’t expecting is great. This movie, which hits the 2026 movie schedule this weekend, has all the right ingredients, but it just doesn’t come together as a perfect dish.
