Hope Review: A Fantastic Monster Movie Start That Completely Falls Apart by the End

In Hope, a police chief, a police woman, and a group of hunters try to track down and kill a mysterious creature that is laying waste to their seaside village. I knew I wanted to see this one the moment I saw the trailer, off the bat, because I liked the cast and the premise. It seemed brutal, it seemed like sci-fi horror, and for a good stretch of the runtime it delivers on that promise before it does not.

Hope Harbor comes under attack from an unseen creature

The village at the center of the story is called Hope Harbor, a little seaside town in South Korea. What I really liked about this movie is how it starts: a small call comes in that some of the animals are getting slaughtered, and the question becomes what could possibly be doing this. The police get notified, and so do the hunters, because the fear is obvious. If a creature is doing this to livestock, what happens when it comes across the villagers?

Making things worse, a lot of the police force has already been sent away to deal with a major wildfire elsewhere. When I say the resources are low, the resources are low, there are only about two to three police officers left in this town. I am assuming it is otherwise peaceful outside of this event. We find out what is happening right alongside the police chief, who walks into path after path of destruction and has no idea how to handle any of it.

I loved seeing his struggle. It is something scary, something unknown, and he has to protect his people while barely having a team left to do it with. As the audience, we get to discover what is happening right along with him, and I had a good time with that structure. For the first part of the film we follow him along, and it is not just buildings being destroyed, people are killed, people are hurt, and it is genuinely brutal.

The creature itself is fast, intelligent, and barely affected by bullets

The film follows different groups at once, the hunters and what they are seeing, the police chief and what he is seeing, and as the audience you are trying to connect the dots. As the movie goes on we learn that whatever this creature is, it is probably really big and obviously terrible, because it is destroying lives and the town. It took a while to reveal what the creature actually looked like, and I appreciated being left in the dark for a bit. I did not need to see it right away.

When it is finally revealed, it is not quite human, but it has humanlike features, a face, hands, while the rest of its body is very different. It can walk upright but can also run on all fours like a bear or a panther, and it is very fast. It is also intelligent, which is completely terrifying, especially for characters going up against something that seems barely affected by bullets.

The police chief and Hoyeon carry a strong first act

The first act of the film is really great. It builds tension and develops the characters well. I am all about the police chief, and I am all about Hoyeon, the police woman. She looked fantastic in this film, and I loved her performance. Watching the characters come together to formulate a plan for how to stop this creature is where the movie is at its best.

One overlong scene sends the tone off the rails

After the group barely survives bringing down one creature, the story shifts to survivors being treated for their injuries. Hoyeon's character is speaking with one of them, starting with small talk and comfort since the survivor's injury, while bad, is not life-threatening. She mentions it is a good thing there are no more, and he responds that there is more, which raises the stakes considerably, since they had barely survived taking down just one.

He then gives a very descriptive account of what he saw, and when I say descriptive, it includes a bodily function he was performing at the time, going to the bathroom. It went on so long that it stopped being comical. I can appreciate movies wanting to add lighthearted beats to break up tension, since otherwise you are clenching your fist on the edge of your seat the whole time. But this went on entirely too long and way too descriptive, to the point where I could feel the uneasiness of the audience I was watching with, like everyone was thinking, okay, point received, we can move on.

The final act breaks the rules the film itself set up

Unfortunately, after that scene, the story never really recovers. It felt like a completely different person had taken over to make the movie. One of my biggest criticisms is that the final act breaks all the rules established in the first act. I cannot say exactly what that is without spoiling the movie, but if you set rules out loud about these creatures, A, B, and C, and then the creatures behave in a completely different way, it just does not match up. It is not cohesive.

The pacing becomes really uneven too, trying to mix really scary moments with really long, drawn out comical moments that just do not mesh well together at all. The film does try to give the creatures a bit of character development, but it comes way too late. The ending left me really frustrated and scratching my head, not in a cliffhanger, wanting-a-sequel kind of way, but in a why-didn't-we-build-this-character-arc-earlier kind of way. With two and a half hours to explore these stories, so much time gets wasted on comedic moments that could have been cut or shortened.

My verdict on Hope

It is frustrating because I feel like there is a really good movie in there. I like the concept, I like the characters, and I liked how terrifying and brutal it was. I think this movie just got away from itself. I am rating it a not for me. If you are curious and still want to see it, you could catch it on VOD when it releases digitally if you do not want to pay the higher movie ticket pricing. It left me frustrated because I know there was something good in there, since that first act was so well done, and I do not know what happened to the second and third acts.

What did you think of the ending if you have seen it?