After eight years out of the spotlight, Duncan Jones returns with Rogue Trooper, a dark, deeply odd animated war film based on the cult favorite 2000 AD comic strip. Aneurin Barnard voices 19, a G.I., or “genetic infantryman”, designed by the Southers to breathe the poisonous air on Nu Earth and engage their enemy, the Norts. The squad of GIs are super-soldiers, clones (harkening back to Jones’ directing debut, Moon) with personalities that can be removed and placed in new bodies so as to learn and evolve. It doesn’t take long before 19 and his fellow soldiers are wiped out on their first mission, betrayed by an unknown traitor, and it’s up to him to return to base and warn the others before its too late.
This would sound like a fairly familiar war movie except for one thing: 19 carries the memory chips of his fallen brethren inside of his backpack, gun, and helmet, and they chat with him constantly. Imagine a soldier who had to carry the souls of his dead brothers with him on the battlefield, and you’ll understand the pressure this puts on 19 to survive, even as everything seems to be working against him. Dropped behind enemy lines, he faces the deadliest sniper in the war, a flamboyant French showboat with a love for Edith Piaf. There are also a pair of junkers (voiced by Matt Berry and Jemaine Clement) who hope to sell 19 to the highest bidder. As the fight for survival escalates, 19 runs into a Mos Eisley-esque cantina full of baddies, and a bruising female fighter named Venus Bluegenes (Hayley Atwell) who gets off on smashing robots.
Rogue Trooper‘s weird quirks are part of its charm, and fans of British comedy will find a lot to love. Others will find the cultural gap pretty wide, with a lot of the gags specific to the Brit audience. The photorealistic animation will draw some comparisons to James Cameron’s Avatar, but it’s inconsistent and takes a lot of getting used to. Many of the characters are designed to resemble the human voice actors, and some of them look downright creepy. When the fighting breaks out, it’s ultra-violent and messy in the way war should be. However, the animation can’t always keep up, and there isn’t enough variety in the battles to prevent tedium from setting in.
Still, Jones deserves credit for taking a big swing with Rogue Trooper. At a time when endless wars seem to be the order of the day, a film that comments on the pointlessness of war is to be commended. There’s an audience out there for this, perhaps a small one that can appreciate the cultural specificity and cynical tone. It’s just good to see Jones back after too long away and making movies only he can make. Rogue Trooper doesn’t always work, but there won’t be another war movie like it for a long time, if ever.
