Captive State has been on a lot of radars since it was first announced, and for good reason. The sci-fi thriller has John Goodman and Vera Farmiga, no strangers to the genre, as its centerpieces, surrounded by rising stars Ashton Sanders (Moonlight), Madeline Brewer (The Handmaid's Tale), and Kiki Layne (If Beale Street Could Talk). A veil of mystery has surrounded the film's plot that has some already comparing it to the Cloverfield franchise, which Goodman is intimately familiar with. And then there's the guy behind the camera, Rupert Wyatt, in his return to blockbuster filmmaking since Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
The first teaser doesn't really illuminate things, but with the heavy focus on politics and an apparently perfect union with no crime and low unemployment, it does vaguely look like The Purge. That is until we see the reason for this so-called paradise is a legislature that is literally out of this world. The imagery of a football stadium full of people standing for the pledge of allegiance isn't lost on me in today's politically charged climate.
Here's the synopsis: Set in a Chicago neighborhood nearly a decade after an occupation by an extra-terrestrial force, ‘Captive State’ explores the lives on both sides of the conflict – the collaborators and dissidents.
Captive State hits theaters on March 29th.
