ARQ

Starring: Robbie Amell, Rachael Taylor, & Adam Butcher

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

First it was original TV shows, then documentaries, and now Netflix is making it's own feature films. ARQ is the companies first foray into science fiction and it hasn't gotten great reviews, due to the fact that it takes place in a time loop. I love science fiction and my favorite type of sci-fi is anything that features the manipulation of time, time travel, alternate history, time displacement, and yes, even time loops. In an apocalyptic futuristic world, Renton (Robbie Amell) has created a new form of energy, one that can possibly turn the tide and save the world. Renton wants to give this gift to all of humanity, but his former employer has other ideas and decides to steal the technology in a violent home invasion, where Renton is killed. After being killed, Renton reawakens starting his day all over again, with a complete memory of what happened. He soon discovers, the longer he lives, the more he learns, but will it be enough to figure out how to escape his current predicament, as well as the unusual time loop he seems to be caught in? Science Fiction fans love this type of film, because it gives us a chance to figure out things at the same time as the main character. It also gives us the chance to think about what we'd do in that situation and see if the character agrees or has some other wildly innovative idea that we didn't even think of. These films also tend to have a lot of noir type twists and turns and can be really thought provoking. The flip side of that, is that you can see some of the same scenes as many as ten times, and if you've never seen anything like this before and aren't a fan of the genre, it can be extremely confusing. That being said, I thought ARQ was exceptionally well written and done to near perfection, some of the twists just blew my mind. On a side note, as a fan of the film Saint Ralph, I was shocked to see Adam Butcher all grown up, playing a hired gun, I really got a kick out of that. ARQ isn't for general audiences, it is genre specific for fans of science fiction. If sci-fi isn't you thing, obviously you're not going to get it and you're not going to like it. If you are a fan, this was really well done, in particular the writing was fantastic, this film will keep guessing right up until the very end, which in and of itself was shocking.