Just when you thought Netflix was poised to go an entire week without living up to its reputation as a purveyor of largely terrible action thrillers, along comes Soulcatcher to bring the streaming service’s hot streak to an end.
It’s only been six days since John Cena and Jackie Chan’s long-delayed Hidden Strike exploded onto the scene and immediately became the number one most-watched movie around the world despite taking a pounding from critics, and director Daniel Markowicz’s latest is already in the same boat having failed to scrape together a single positive review on Rotten Tomatoes as of yet.
However, because we’re talking about a Netflix-produced shoot ’em up that’s available at the push of a button to subscribers everywhere, Soulcatcher has wasted no time becoming one of the platform’s top-viewed titles. Per FlixPatrol, the gritty Polish runner and gunner with hints of sci-fi and a dollop of fantasy has arrived as the fourth-biggest hit on the global charts, by way of mowing down a Top 10 spot in 75 countries.
Workmanlike, formulaic, and uninspiring to a fault, Piotr Witkowski stars as an elite military operative drafted in to seize a dangerous weapon from nefarious forces, one with the ability to transform people into murderous – dare we say, zombie-like – killing machines, with his brother also falling foul of the device.
Not exactly one that’s going to be remembered a month from now, Soulcatcher can at least bask in the glory of a stellar start, because it’s already looking as though praise is going to be very difficult to come by.