If you guys are looking for a generic action movie, it doesn’t get more generic than ‘Elevation’.

Anthony Mackie, who is currently dealing with the near 400 million dollar disaster film that we know as ‘Captain America Brave New World’, is a notable name in entertainment but hasn’t proven to be a leading man in any real capacity. Mackie can enhance a film that he is a part of but the elephant in the room is does he have enough to lead his film?

Unfortunately for Marvel Studios, they would have to learn that lesson the hard way in 2025.  For Vertical Entertainment, however, is a studio known for movies with a significantly smaller budget. The risk of propping up Mackie’s main event status is far smaller leading us to the Sci-fi apocalyptic film ‘Elevation’.

‘Elevation’ takes place in the future where monstrous creatures have burrowed from the Earth and have begun wiping out the human population. Fast forward 3 years into the future and 95% of the world has been killed by these monsters and the only path of safety humanity seems to have is the fact that these creatures cannot travel an elevation above 8000 ft.

In a small Mountain colony in Colorado, Will (Mackie) is surviving with a handful Of individuals taking care of his sick son. Will’s son has an illness that requires him to constantly be supplied oxygen to keep him from dying.  After using the last artificial canister that he has,  Will has no choice but to travel below elevation into the town of Boulder in an attempt to find him more oxygen canisters to keep his son alive.

Joining him on this journey is an alcoholic scientist named Nina, who is looking for a way to kill the creatures using a special bullet. As well as a Texas girl, known for chopping wood and carrying water. These three individuals must descend into the city where they can be targeted by unkillable monsters at any given moment.

Elevation is the textbook definition of a filler movie. There’s nothing special about the film in its presentation the opening minute sets the stage for the universe that the characters find themselves in by not showing the origin of the creatures and how they were able to wipe out most of humanity.

We see the conflict in which our protagonist must go into the town to obtain medicine for a sick child and try to survive along the way. The acting is textbook small-budget serviceable. Much like a system quarterback, Anthony Mackie only has one job, get the audience from point A to point B and that is exactly what he does.

Morena Baccarin and Maddie Hasson are Mackie’s co-stars but they are miscast in the sense that they come off as women playing roles that were written for men but were given to them for the sake of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The runtime is very short, only 90 minutes from start to finish meaning that you’ll be in and out of this film without much of a drag.

The short-run time works in the film’s favor as ‘Elevation’ succeeds in not overstaying its welcome. Quick to the point and for that reason is not a terrible film. ‘Elevation’ is the perfect time killer if you have a small window that you are looking to fill by watching something that you haven’t checked out before. ‘Elevation’ is the perfect movie to fill that void.

With that said, the movie does come off as something that works better on a streaming service such as Netflix or Hulu than a feature-length film. If you close your eyes and squint hard enough, you can see elements of other horror movies such as ‘A Quiet Place’ that inspired the premise of this movie with the key difference being instead of being tracked by sound characters are tracked by the CO2 they admit by breathing.

‘Elevation’ is nothing more than a glass-half-full movie. It isn’t terrible, it’s not great, but it is certainly one of the movies to come out this year.

2.5/5

Don’t forget to Subscribe for Updates. Also, Follow Us at Society-Reviews, YouTube,  Twitter, Odysee, Rumble, and Twitch