War Machine

• Directed, Co-Produced, and Co-Written by Patrick Hughes
• February 12, 2026 (Australia) / March 6, 2026 (Netflix)

A group of potential Army Rangers-in-training come across an attacking alien force.

In broad strokes War Machine reminds me of the 2011 film Battle: Los Angeles. Alien invasion first believed to be a meteor shower and an emotionally wounded soldier who eventually comes to terms with his wounds by confronting an alien menace.  I can say after viewing this Battle: LA was more brutal.

Our story takes a good chunk of its time showing how tough the cast of short-term characters are rather than developing them or even central figure Staff Sergeant 81 (Alan Ritchson) beyond his general pain. None of the candidates get referred to by actual names in this which hinders characterization but then again they do not last very long. As Rangers, that should tell us all they are tougher than most.

Noting the similarities to Battle, this gets derivative. I felt like I had seen so much of this already. Every battle, every discussion felt like I had already seen it in a film that switched out aliens with technological enhancements for transmorphers in a decidedly cheaper effort. There are plenty of large explosions with action sequences consisting of humans fleeing. The transformer-like machines are sent from another world. Guns and ammo along with potent ordinance are useless against these heavily armored robots but falling rocks work just fine.

Just before the climax, 81 comes to terms with his brother’s (Jai Courtney) death which has been weighing him down and making him mildly suicidal though he is still a better soldier than everybody else. Throughout War Machine there’s a reference and occasional flashback to his brother using something Stop Leak in radiators which causes the car to overheat. Why does he keep doing that? To provide a solution to the threat. At least from the perspective of the plot.

Anyway, that leads directly into how 81 defeats the lone non-transformer he is dealing with. He leads it to a mining facility of indeterminate kind and engages in battle with it using a bucket truck. Cool. Then he manages to cover its vents and overheat it. Seems like a pretty serious issue to have for a battle machine. You’ve crossed interstellar space to launch robots at a planet but if people can just dump something on top, they can overheat your device. However, this is a major bit of intel and somehow is going to be the key to defeating these machines that are now spread across the planet. I have no idea how you figure out a way to plug all their radiators.

I get no sense of the characters, and the dialogue is pretty weak. We had a conspiracy theorist and a few panicked soldiers, but they get removed from the movie pretty quickly, leaving 81 to be the only hero here. The only other character to make it out alive is a dude that coincidentally was pals with 81’s brother just before he died in Afghanistan.

I just didn’t find War Machine that interesting. The emotional baggage was overdone and the action was underdone. The alien machine designs looked generic like any number of off brand films. The characters were two-dimensional. Photography often had that Zack Snyder gray to it mixed with shots of obvious CGI. Feels very been there/done that.

Alan Ritchson has the physique and general presence mostly derived from his time on Reacher to come off as a driven military man. And. The same goes for his ability to convey the emotional difficulties the gentleman is going through. I just can’t find this film be anything special or even a guilty pleasure.

I really went in wanting to like this. If you’re nothing else because I wanted an alien invasion film but it just feel felt so tepid and derivative. Having watched Battle: Los Angeles and seeing the similarities with this I couldn’t help but compare it to that and it just didn’t measure up. It has nothing that makes it special. There has been praise offered for this but I just think it comes from people that need to see more movies.

I cannot say I was particularly wowed by War Machine. It wasn’t that exciting and it wasn’t that emotional. I think you can skip this one.