War Machine (2026) is directed by Patrick Hughes, who also wrote the film alongside James Beaufort. It stars Alan Ritchson, Stephan James, Blake Richardson, Alex King, Keiynan Lonsdale, Jack Patten, Dennis Quaid, Esai Morales, Jai Courtney, James Beaufort, Joshua Diaz, Jacob Hohua, Daniel Webber, Richard Cotta, Matt Testro, Victory Ndukwe, Heather Burridge, and Justin Wang. The film follows a decorated combat veteran (Ritchson) who’s ordered to lead a group of Army Ranger recruits on a seemingly routine combat exercise. The mission quickly goes awry when the group is ambushed by a heavily armed alien robot with only one mission: kill anything in its way. With no viable weapons to defend themselves, the group is forced into a desperate game of survival against a relentless, seemingly indestructible foe.

For those who’ve seen the streaming series, Reacher (2022-), it’ll come as no surprise to learn that Alan Ritchson once again proves himself as an uncommonly talented action star. Formulaic, derivative action romps such as this can often work if elevated by a compelling lead, and that’s mostly the case here. His physicality is undeniable, but he also displays some impressive dramatic chops. His character’s PTS-afflicted, emotionally distant personality is nothing new for this kind of soldiers-on-a-mission movie, but it feels natural despite being cliché. 

Unfortunately, not a single supporting character receives enough characterization to make the audience care when they inevitably bite the dust. Most of the time, it’s tough to distinguish these characters from one another beyond meaningless visual cues like gender, glasses, and skin color. Even the two most defined characters can’t be described any more specifically than “nice co-leader,” “token asshole,” or “nervous guy.” 

The film is extremely derivative of Predator (1987), and unsurprisingly, it’s lesser in nearly every way. That being said, there’s something primal and irresistible about the simplicity of the Predator formula. This helps War Machine deliver a reasonable amount of entertainment, especially for its core action audience. For the gung-ho, machismo-loving sect of Netflix subscribers, this is an easy film to recommend. 

The film is consistently tense, brutal, and well-paced, but it gets a little too silly in the last thirty minutes. The actual size of the alien robot begins to feel inconsistent with what’s established earlier in the film, as if it conveniently shrinks just so the protagonist can have a fighting chance. Also, the movie just generally feels a bit too much like thoughtless military propaganda–as if the army consists of literally the smartest, bravest, most morally justified people on Earth. Sometimes this very well may be the case in real life, but there’s no nuance here, as if incompetent, dumb soldiers don’t exist as well. I get that these are top recruits, but that’s exactly it. The movie treats them like they’ve done this before. 

The film’s general setup is also annoyingly coincidental. So, an alien aircraft crashes about 100 yards from where these soldiers are doing an exercise to find another crashed aircraft, causing them to initially mistake the alien for a non-treat? That’s wildly unlikely and put a bad taste in my mouth right off the bat. Thankfully, the film ends on a fun note with a compelling setup for a potential sequel. It teases a bigger, bolder continuation that’s exciting and full of action-blockbuster potential. It’s a tad silly, but so is this entire film, so it’s easy to shrug one’s shoulders and accept it. 

Overall, this is a derivative little Predator romp that should mostly satisfy fans of the subgenre, but won’t wow them. A strong lead performance from Alan Ritchson, along with breakneck pacing, elevates this above similar streaming efforts. That said, I wouldn’t disagree with anyone who finds this to be forgettable corporate sludge. Considering that it was included with my Netflix subscription, I, for one, found it to be inoffensive ‘kill two hours’ entertainment despite its head being filled with rocks. Seriously, our entire military can’t figure out that a robot can be disabled by clogging its ventilation? Have they never used machines before? I was going to give this a C+, but after writing those last two sentences, I’ve changed my mind. C