To be truthful, the makers of this pulpy, if too dry, action-adventure appear to know what they’re doing, or no less than the place to stay jokes, character improvement, and perfunctory bloodletting. Additionally they appear to have very actually translated a novel to a visible medium with out consideration for a way listless, flat, and charmless this globe-trotting chase film may now look. Working example: after we first meet Kristin (Vivian Olafsdottir), she’s meticulously dressing down Runolfur (Hjortur Johann Jonsson), a lazy mansplaining colleague, utilizing Powerpoint-style slides that reveal precisely how Runolfur’s tried to promote “previous wine in new bottles,” in response to Kristin.
We additionally see Kristin sharing a pseudo-playful dialog together with her explorer brother Elias (Atli Oskar Fjalarsson) proper earlier than he and his workforce are approached by smiling Julie Ratoff (Adesuwa Oni) and her armed goons. Elias unexpectedly texts Kristin some video footage of the Nazi airplane that he and his hapless companions have stumbled upon. Kristin should quickly additionally take care of Julie, who kills considered one of Elias’ buddies with a pencil after which, in a later scene, tortures another person with a pencil.
Elias and Kristin’s pre-Julie dialog checks off some dramatic packing containers, however in such primary methods which you could’t assist however want that the screenwriters had both rewritten or tried a brand new method to this establishing scene. They child round with one another and speak about their stillborn love lives as in the event that they have been distractedly working their method by means of a guidelines of social prompts. Then Julie reveals up, and her smile is as unconvincing as Oni’s efficiency. She asks for Elias and his workforce’s contact data, and the stress is so hilariously slack that the by-the-numbers bloodletting that follows appears much more underwhelming.
Julie works for the icy CIA agent William Carr (Iain Glen), whom we all know is a foul man since, in his first scene, he performs along with his grandchildren. William additionally employs Simon (Wotan Wilke Mohring), a sneaky however laughably conspicuous killer who follows Kristin round Iceland however in some way fails to kill her, and Steve (Jack Fox), her well-read will-they/gained’t-they companion. Simon kills and/or roughs up some bystanders, however most of his character-defining aggression, like Julie’s pencil trick, occurs off-screen.
