Onslaught Review
Onslaught (2026) Film Review, a movie directed by Adam Wingard, writen by Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard and starring Adria Arjona, Dan Stevens, Eric Wareheim, Reginald VelJohnson, Michael Biehn, Blake Kennedy, Drew Starkey, Alex Pereira, Rebecca Hall, Jacob Scipio, Leon M. Brown, Dave Campbell, Tyler Hall, Jasper Keen, Abby Townsend, Sarah Minnich, Maurice Greene and Christian Calloway.
A24’s latest film, Onslaught, is a homage to midnight B movies that starts off OK with unusual scenes that immediately command the viewer’s attention. Unfortunately, the film gets bogged down in a standard run-of-the-mill plot in which a woman must take matters into her own hands to save her daughter from some “genetically engineered super soldiers.” It’s as quirky as it sounds and though it shoots for weirdness and scores, the film doesn’t really do anything new to make this movie stand out from the pack of similarly themed films. It feels like it has that Grindhouse movie (from 2007) vibe, but that unique “hook” is missing, making the movie ultimately come up a bit short.
In the picture, Adria Arjona portrays Celeste, a woman who has been pushed past the breaking point. She hides her collection of guns (which looks like it comes straight from an arsenal) when her baby’s daddy comes to town. Set in the desert, we meet Celeste’s daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy), who seems to be going through some very deep emotions as her parents don’t appear to be getting along.
This film opens with Rebecca Hall’s character, Hanna Kammler. She’s impressing her white-haired husband, a scientist known as Hans (Dan Stevens), with her literal fancy footwork. By the way, she’s a dominatrix. Hans may be unleashing some creepy creations into the world soon, so everybody is about to deal with this couple’s wild shenanigans. There are super soldiers, who can’t feel pain that are ready to go out into this film’s society and all hell is going to break loose as you may have guessed from the film’s trailers.
Most of director Adam Wingard’s surprisingly mediocre Onslaught is about the initially unlikable Celeste, who may grow on audiences as the movie progresses, thanks to Arjona. She’s got a nasty attitude and she’ll be able to use it to protect her daughter as the film gets down and dirty with fight sequences.
There is no shortage of actors who try hard in the picture with Reginald VelJohnson taking top honors as his character, Josiah, is always at the center of the action whenever the movie feels the need to toss in some comic relief. 1980’s character actor, Michael Biehn (Aliens), seems right at home in this offbeat material, and gives his performance in the film a lot of unwarranted energy. It has been 40 years since Aliens, so to see Biehn on-screen again is a testament to the actor’s persistence in terms of doing what he loves as an actor.
Adria Arjona has the time of her life playing Celeste. She feels like she takes the character places the script never intended her to. Arjona has the right amount of wit and comic timing necessary to be a successful action heroine, but the movie lacks sufficient villains that make one want to see Celeste unleash her vengeance upon those who threaten her and her daughter.
Everything here is manufactured poorly where the behind the scenes creation of the super warriors is concerned. It’s no contest who we want to see win. It’s Celeste, so the movie really needed to up the ante where the writing of its bad guys is concerned. Instead, it’s just watching Celeste going through her motions as we never feel she’s in the grave danger she could have been placed in with a more ambitious movie and screenplay.
There are some unintentional homages to Grindhouse or at least it feels like there are. Onslaught could have been the B movie that people who love B movies may have wanted. However, it needed a sharper edge to the proceedings. Rebecca Hall’s character should have been front and center in the action more since her scenes in the movie tend to be quite interesting, thanks to the actress’s charisma.
Blake Kennedy is actually really good, too, as the little girl, who seems to be going through some turmoil as the picture brings her and her mom closer together in a way that is cleverly constructed, if not particularly well-executed. It’s fun to have much of the movie set in a trailer park, however the film is not very smart in the way it pits the bad guys against the good ones. It thinks it is doing something that hasn’t been done before, but it has.
Onslaught has the ingredients of a movie that could have worked. Arjona is the type of actress who can be watchable in just about anything, and this film is no exception. Onslaught isn’t always easy to enjoy because of the scenes that aren’t centered around Arjona. There are other characters (including those played by Drew Starkey and Eric Wareheim as well as Alex Pereira’s The Butcher) here that seem to have the potential to be interesting, but never really gel, unfortunately, for whatever reason.
Though Onslaught may please true fans of Arjona, it marks a major disappointment for A24 in a year in which they have put out some great films (see The Invite, Mother Mary). They’ll have to justify a theatrical release for this film which may fail at the box-office and prove the picture should have gone straight to streaming.
Rating: 5/10
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