SHADOW IN THE CLOUD (2021)

SHADOW IN THE CLOUD (2021)

Tagline:  Every mission has its demons.

(Action, War, Horror) [R]

You have no idea how far I'll go!

In this one, we are taken back to WWII where Maude Garrett forges paperwork to get on board a bomber  (a B-17 flying fortress )plane headed on a delivery mission. The crew doesn’t want her there and they basically make her get into the turret of the plane. There she has access to guns but is forced to leave the package she brought on board with the men. It doesn’t take long before the bomber is inexplicably attacked by Japanese fighter planes and a mysterious figure in the clouds. Does she hold a secret that could save the crew, or is the flight “The Fool’s Errand”? 

First off I have to say that Chloë Grace Moretz (who plays the main character Maude Garrett) is one of those actresses that is freakin amazing but goes on long spurts of doing roles in dumpster fire movies. For me, it’s been almost 8 years since she’s done anything I’d care to watch that wasn’t voice work. Having said all that, this movie is almost completely driven by her when it comes to acting. So if you like her, that’s a huge plus right off the bat for you. In fact, most everyone else is hardly on screen. For the purpose of this film, everything comes together in an onslaught of brazenly aggressive popcorn brilliance. 

The cinematography in this thing is top-notch. We get some amazing camera work and nice touches on the intro of the flight crew when the focus is just on them. It’s almost like when “Eleven” from STRANGER THINGS goes to the “upside-down” in some scenes. The other thing that is noticeably awesome about this movie is the score. That layering of mild techno on this thing just brings it up to date incredibly while all the aesthetics perfectly place us in World War II. 

Some people have been calling this a B-movie or a grindhouse film. It isn’t either. The CGI effects in this movie are pretty incredible. The movie does have a lot of blood but isn’t burdened with guts and gore that would have made it less accessible to fans who might have wanted to walk into something just nuts and outlandish. This makes them not necessarily hard to digest for non-horror fans. What may turn off some is that this movie gets a bit deeper than anything you would normally expect in a film like this. Maude’s background story is really intense might trigger some people. What the story also does do is take a huge twist and turn it into an even more solid film by giving this entire story heart. 

The pacing in this flick is excellent with a slow-burn beginning that ratchets up the stakes as it moves along. One thing I should note is that this is a period piece so the way the scriptwriter decided to take on the realism was to make most of the male characters crass and abusive towards Maude. This will probably break the PC crowd. For the rest of this, the movie has its rewards that are well worth the wait. Garrett is powerful, determined, and well trained. This movie definitely falls in the category of “chicks will kick your teeth in”, so you can always bring it up when someone is looking for examples of movies with strong female characters. 

This is an easy 6 out of 7. I love crazy, non-sense with realism, maybe we get a surprise or two flicks that just don’t give a crap. If you care about physics, by the way, exit stage left. This thing will snap your mind like a stale breadstick. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF FOUR KNIGHTS FILM AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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