The Reel Review
Megan Fox (Transformers) stars in this adventure/horror mashup as the leader of a group of battle hardened mercenaries trying to rescue a young girl from sex traffickers in Africa. But their rescue mission takes a disastrous turn, evolving into horror as they must escape not only the pursuing terrorists, but also a deadly, vengeful lioness with a taste for humans.
OK, so the story is a laundry list of wacky story twists with some shockingly bad lion CGI. It would have been way more effective to just NOT show the lioness. And the idea that a lioness would seek revenge against humans is completely silly. That said, Megan Fox actually is fairly believable as the badass commando, and director MJ Bassett (Solomon Kane, Silent Hill: Revelation), who wrote the screenplay with daughter Isabel (who also plays Tessa in the film), creates a fun “run and gun” story which, phony-looking lioness aside, showcases some pretty decent visual effects on a shoestring budget.
Rogue certainly won’t win any awards, but as far as mindlessly entertaining action/adventure Saturday afternoon matinees go, it does the job on a rainy day. It would be cool to see what director Bassett could do with a bigger budget.
REEL FACTS
• In 2016, English-born M.J. Bassett came out as transgender.
• Rogue was filmed in December 2019 on a game reserve about an hour’s drive from Johannesburg, South Africa.
• In November 2020, Megan Fox filed for divorce from Beverly Hills 90210 star Brian Austin Green, after 10 years of marriage. They have three children. She started dating Machine Gun Kelly earlier in 2020.
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