[Review] Shadow in the Cloud(2021) {5.5/10}

Directed by Roseanne Liang from a screenplay by Liang and Max Landis, the film stars Chloë Grace Moretz (Maude Garrett), Taylor John Smith (Walter Quaid), Nick Robinson (Stu Beckell), Beulah Koale (Anton Williams) and Callan Mulvey (John Reeves).

The plot follows Maude Garrett (Chloë Grace Moretz) who is a World War II Air Force servicewoman who is on a mysterious mission, only to have a gremlin attack the bomber she is riding on.

Shadow in the Cloud plays to the cinematic roots of the gremlin with its own cartoon introduction, a knowing nod that doesn’t really fit with the rest of the film. That’s not an issue, because this high-flying creature feature feels like two movies smooshed together. One half is a broad drama about a woman’s place in World War II, mostly told from Garrett’s cramped position in the Sperry, a one-woman performance with the men’s voices and dismissive attitudes carried over the interior coms system. The narrative almost revels in its weightlessness, never pulling any of its numerous threads together with any kind of coherence or depth. Shadow in the Cloud sees itself as a kind of feminist anthem, portraying the tough-as-nails Garrett as the asskicker who will eventually put her male naysayers in their place. Unfortunately, this is where the story falters most; the truth is that outside of Moretz’s performance, every other supporting player is a broad caricature. Mostly voices on the intercom, the male crewmen are almost uniformly irredeemable misogynists, existing only to be disposed of poetically in the film’s bloody third act. Credited writers Max Landis and Roseanne Liang machine-gun an absurd number of plot twists and developments into 83 minutes, and the second half is so completely removed from the first that they may have just written it exquisite corpse-style. That’s a point of contention: After allegations of sexual assault and abusive behavior leveled against Landis, Liang is reported to have handled heavy rewrites. She may want to keep his name on there to share the blame, and it undoubtedly has his heavy-handed, overblown brand of unlikely heroics which would be fine, if the first half-hour weren’t a moody, if equally heavy-handed, character-driven period drama. Shadow in the Cloud has every ingredient for a cult classic, it’s just a shame that it’s so fatally underwritten.

Shadow in the Cloud is now available on VOD.