The Purge, Cloverfield, Children Of Men, V For Vendetta and a dozen other sci-fi influences collide in the new trailer for Rupert Wyatt’s alien invasion aftermath movie, The Captive State.
Returning to sci-fi after he followed up Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes with The Gambler, Wyatt’s film is set 10 years after a successful alien invasion in a world controlled by propaganda. Crime and poverty have been wiped out (apparently) and there’s absolutely no reason to fear the giant space rock that hovers above the city.
“Collaborators” and “dissidents” duke it out whilst the alien overlords watch from the sky (and from the ground, in one tiny glimpse of the film’s creature design), in what looks like a fairly charged commentary on our own current political problems.
Wyatt wrote the film alongside Erica Beeney (The Battle of Shaker Heights), and John Goodman stars alongside Vera Farmiga and Ashton Sanders (Moonlight). Plot details are still thin on the ground – but the film has a new viral website for us to hunt for clues. Standing in front of a bank of screens showing The White House, it looks like Goodman is some kind of authority figure, and it seems like Sanders is on the run for the rebellion, but it’s hard to tell from a trailer that’s all about misinformation.
The only thing we know for sure is that “the phoenix will rise”. Whatever that means.
Check out the film’s first trailer below.
The Captive Stateis due out on the 12th of April next year.