Everything about 2020’s action thriller Rogue is so unashamedly stupid that it shouldn’t work, but somehow, all of the chaotic parts combined for form a deliriously demented B-tier genre flick that turned out to be way more entertaining that it had any right to be.
The laughable elements of the film start from the very top, with Megan Fox cast as a battle-hardened and world-weary former soldier-turned-elite mercenary who mounts a daring rescue mission with her team in the sun-baked African wilderness. On paper it sounds like miscasting of the highest order, but that’s only part of Rogue‘s charm.
Just when you think the story is following the standard “ensemble gets whittled down one-by-one until the star is the last person standing for the final showdown” route, co-writer and director M.J. Bassett only goes ahead and throws a goddamned pride of hungry (and very questionably rendered) CGI lions into the mix. It’s utterly bonkers, but the best kind of bonkers.
Of course, the end results proved to be polarizing, which is entirely dependent on your ability to suspend disbelief to the level that Rogue requires from its first to last minute. A 64 percent Rotten Tomatoes score points towards an above-average actioner, but a 19 percent user rating tells the opposite story.
Either way, HBO Max subscribers have been won over by Rogue’s unique charms, with FlixPatrol revealing the unexpectedly entertaining slice of bats*t craziness has charted on the platform’s global ranks. Megan Fox: Action Hero vs. bad CGI lions? Based on that alone, you’ll know if you’re in or out.