(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“A mysterious discovery is made on the outskirts of the remote harbor town. The residents find themselves in a desperate fight for survival against something they have never encountered before.”
By their very nature, monster movies require a suspension of disbelief.
In reality, we don’t have vampires. We don’t have werewolves. Frankensteins aren’t lying in wait around every corner. There isn’t an authentic Godzilla. Jason Voorhees is entirely a fictional creation. So on and so forth. Oh, I know what you’re thinking: we do have plenty of them metaphorically, and that’s true. Yet, we don’t have any in their original skins (which says a lot for Leatherface). Because their stories – as bold or as vivid as they might be – require the audience to accept that they are possible, storytellers do have to put serious effort into ensuring that as little as possible gets in the way of all the corresponding bits and pieces – the tissue holding it all together – unless they’re willing to have this world all come crashing down around them like a house of cards.
Celebrated director Na Hong-jin knows precisely what I’m talking about what with his latest monster opus Hope (2026) hitting U.S. screens this past weekend; and yet it would seem as if he’s content ignoring structure in favor of spectacle. Most assuredly, Hope is a sight to behold with its sometimes frenetic action sequences and heart-stopping tension pushing viewers to the limits of what they can endure; and it’s a flick that’s also surprisingly funny at the right time and even questions what some might do to protect their lives and livelihoods from senseless victimhood status. In fact, I’d argue that Hope throughout its first hour is about as perfect as any monster movie can or ever will be, and I’ve only said that about a handful of features.
However …
The problem began when I realized that there was entirely no way that everything in Hope was going to tie up in its bloated 160-minutes run-time. In fact, the picture ends on a massive unresolved cliffhanger with a late-breaking development that almost – almost – comes out of nowhere, meaning that not even its central story of one small town’s devastation at the hands of these creatures is far from over. In this case, you’re expected to come back for another helping entirely – assuming that it gets made – in order to see these events brought to any kind of acceptable closure. I’ve read that Hong-jin actually intends there to be a trilogy, but he’s only completed a script for a direct sequel and as of yet has not scheduled its shooting. Furthermore, he’s even hinted online that the planned middle film focuses entirely on Hope’s alien civilization – who they are, how they got here, their society’s internal conflicts, etc. – implying that it’ll do little to nothing to address much from Part One.
With Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings, audiences went in with the knowledge that future installments were coming. The fact that the pictures were being distributed in such a manner was part of the studio’s marketing. To a degree, this perception softened the blow of the screen fading to black and the credits starting to role on Part One: unless you were born on an island, you were fully understanding that any single picture was only a single investment on a huge creative undertaking. Yes, it was still a huge, calculated gamble; but, minimally, that awareness helped viewers to temper their expectations. That isn’t the case here – there are only loose commitments made, with no mention of this picture needed a sequel, and I had to search online to learn more (something the casual moviegoer is not likely to do) – so ‘word of mouth’ will be sorely needed to prop up Hope and its entirely unresolved reality.
Of course, I’m all in favor of any storyteller setting ambitious goals. Hong-jin definitely has a track record suggesting that he’s capable of delivering big films with even bigger ideas. Regardless, the second half of Hope is a bit of a jumbled mess, never quite finding a comfortable pace shifting between its multiple locations and the world-building required to make any of the alien society palatable. There’s a welcome quirkiness to most of it – small towns breed unlikely heroes but they’re easy to embrace – but there’s no escaping the fact that after the two-hour mark this thing lost a lot of the magic that made its first hour an unstoppable and unforgettable experience. Roughly, its last forty minutes almost becomes a parody of itself, leaving me to question whether or not I’d been duped by Hong-jin and needed to reevaluate the strength of his film’s incredible set-up.
Naturally, there are smaller things that I could dissect if I felt the need. Some of Hope’s CGI feels a bit amateurish – especially in comparison to other sequences which work much better when shaded in a bit of darkness – and a character or two seem to be rather convenient creations one can see living in a bit city as opposed to taking up residence in some boarder town. Once you do see the monsters, you might even wonder how a thing of its relative size accomplished some of the devastation depicted as the scale of destruction doesn’t quite match up. A death or two might seem a bit gratuitous when compared to what Hong-jin accomplishes through suggestion as opposed to outright display, so there’s always something valuable to be gained through nuance instead of exploitation. Hope raises far more questions than it could answer – even in its exhaustive run-time – but its second half opted to even ask more when it should’ve been minimally invested in tying some of the mysteries up as a reward for the audience’s patience. None arrives … and, yes, some – some like me – will likely feel cheated in the process.
Alas … only Mildly Recommended (in its current form).
Hope (2026) is the kind of film that showcases both the perfection and imperfection of visual storytelling: if you begin with a product that cannot ultimately stand on its own then you also own the risk of infuriating viewers with your ending. I walked out with far more asks than I had answers; and, personally, I’m disappointed with how little I learned, even more so when considering how long the film is. I’m half inclined to tell readers to get up and walk out once its action fully shifts fully into the forests surrounding the waterside community because then you’ll have left with a near-perfect monster movie albeit with a central explanation to know why it all took place. (Don’t do it, but I had to be honest.) The problems lie entirely with overambition of the main story, and I wonder if this might have been better conceived and executed as a long-form ten-episode streaming project instead of the intended trilogy.
In the interest of fairness, I’m beholden to no one for this review of Hope (2026) as I watched it entirely on my own dime at the local theater.
-- EZ
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“A mysterious discovery is made on the outskirts of the remote harbor town. The residents find themselves in a desperate fight for survival against something they have never encountered before.”
By their very nature, monster movies require a suspension of disbelief.
In reality, we don’t have vampires. We don’t have werewolves. Frankensteins aren’t lying in wait around every corner. There isn’t an authentic Godzilla. Jason Voorhees is entirely a fictional creation. So on and so forth. Oh, I know what you’re thinking: we do have plenty of them metaphorically, and that’s true. Yet, we don’t have any in their original skins (which says a lot for Leatherface). Because their stories – as bold or as vivid as they might be – require the audience to accept that they are possible, storytellers do have to put serious effort into ensuring that as little as possible gets in the way of all the corresponding bits and pieces – the tissue holding it all together – unless they’re willing to have this world all come crashing down around them like a house of cards.
Celebrated director Na Hong-jin knows precisely what I’m talking about what with his latest monster opus Hope (2026) hitting U.S. screens this past weekend; and yet it would seem as if he’s content ignoring structure in favor of spectacle. Most assuredly, Hope is a sight to behold with its sometimes frenetic action sequences and heart-stopping tension pushing viewers to the limits of what they can endure; and it’s a flick that’s also surprisingly funny at the right time and even questions what some might do to protect their lives and livelihoods from senseless victimhood status. In fact, I’d argue that Hope throughout its first hour is about as perfect as any monster movie can or ever will be, and I’ve only said that about a handful of features.
However …
The problem began when I realized that there was entirely no way that everything in Hope was going to tie up in its bloated 160-minutes run-time. In fact, the picture ends on a massive unresolved cliffhanger with a late-breaking development that almost – almost – comes out of nowhere, meaning that not even its central story of one small town’s devastation at the hands of these creatures is far from over. In this case, you’re expected to come back for another helping entirely – assuming that it gets made – in order to see these events brought to any kind of acceptable closure. I’ve read that Hong-jin actually intends there to be a trilogy, but he’s only completed a script for a direct sequel and as of yet has not scheduled its shooting. Furthermore, he’s even hinted online that the planned middle film focuses entirely on Hope’s alien civilization – who they are, how they got here, their society’s internal conflicts, etc. – implying that it’ll do little to nothing to address much from Part One.
With Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings, audiences went in with the knowledge that future installments were coming. The fact that the pictures were being distributed in such a manner was part of the studio’s marketing. To a degree, this perception softened the blow of the screen fading to black and the credits starting to role on Part One: unless you were born on an island, you were fully understanding that any single picture was only a single investment on a huge creative undertaking. Yes, it was still a huge, calculated gamble; but, minimally, that awareness helped viewers to temper their expectations. That isn’t the case here – there are only loose commitments made, with no mention of this picture needed a sequel, and I had to search online to learn more (something the casual moviegoer is not likely to do) – so ‘word of mouth’ will be sorely needed to prop up Hope and its entirely unresolved reality.
Of course, I’m all in favor of any storyteller setting ambitious goals. Hong-jin definitely has a track record suggesting that he’s capable of delivering big films with even bigger ideas. Regardless, the second half of Hope is a bit of a jumbled mess, never quite finding a comfortable pace shifting between its multiple locations and the world-building required to make any of the alien society palatable. There’s a welcome quirkiness to most of it – small towns breed unlikely heroes but they’re easy to embrace – but there’s no escaping the fact that after the two-hour mark this thing lost a lot of the magic that made its first hour an unstoppable and unforgettable experience. Roughly, its last forty minutes almost becomes a parody of itself, leaving me to question whether or not I’d been duped by Hong-jin and needed to reevaluate the strength of his film’s incredible set-up.
Naturally, there are smaller things that I could dissect if I felt the need. Some of Hope’s CGI feels a bit amateurish – especially in comparison to other sequences which work much better when shaded in a bit of darkness – and a character or two seem to be rather convenient creations one can see living in a bit city as opposed to taking up residence in some boarder town. Once you do see the monsters, you might even wonder how a thing of its relative size accomplished some of the devastation depicted as the scale of destruction doesn’t quite match up. A death or two might seem a bit gratuitous when compared to what Hong-jin accomplishes through suggestion as opposed to outright display, so there’s always something valuable to be gained through nuance instead of exploitation. Hope raises far more questions than it could answer – even in its exhaustive run-time – but its second half opted to even ask more when it should’ve been minimally invested in tying some of the mysteries up as a reward for the audience’s patience. None arrives … and, yes, some – some like me – will likely feel cheated in the process.
Alas … only Mildly Recommended (in its current form).
Hope (2026) is the kind of film that showcases both the perfection and imperfection of visual storytelling: if you begin with a product that cannot ultimately stand on its own then you also own the risk of infuriating viewers with your ending. I walked out with far more asks than I had answers; and, personally, I’m disappointed with how little I learned, even more so when considering how long the film is. I’m half inclined to tell readers to get up and walk out once its action fully shifts fully into the forests surrounding the waterside community because then you’ll have left with a near-perfect monster movie albeit with a central explanation to know why it all took place. (Don’t do it, but I had to be honest.) The problems lie entirely with overambition of the main story, and I wonder if this might have been better conceived and executed as a long-form ten-episode streaming project instead of the intended trilogy.
In the interest of fairness, I’m beholden to no one for this review of Hope (2026) as I watched it entirely on my own dime at the local theater.
-- EZ
RSS Feed