The Last Assassins review – shades of Blade Runner in a dystopian thriller shrouded in dark green mystery | film

CA decade after the year Blade Runner was set, this film remains the gold standard of dystopian futures. This is evident from the dark green and Asian signage of the crumbling city where this sci-fi thriller begins; The last remnants of civilization after a mysterious catastrophe called The Event. As Earth enters a new Dark Age, outside the cities there is a noxious fog that shrouds everything in perpetual winter.

Fortunately, our child protagonist (Athena Park) has the coziest knit look this side of Topshop. She is forced to flee when her father, the head of an important clan, is strangled, suffocated and trampled by masked robbers demanding to know her whereabouts. The flamboyantly bearded henchman Noble (Josh Bainbridge), katana at the ready, is there to guide her into the Badlands — and hopefully into the arms of the aunt (Laura Burke) she never knew existed.

With such a rapid apocalypse and a superficially depicted social and economic landscape, co-writer and debut director James Anthony Yosas struggles to muster more than just generic encounters for this wandering duo. There’s a pit stop in a garage made of futuristic Jerry/Greasy Spoon, a rescue mission that’s even more rejected by Mad Max, and of course the obligatory cannibals. Even the through-line—the cybernetic technology developed by the child’s father, and in which her aunt plays an integral role—echoes Blade Runner’s preoccupation with identity without reaching the same existential depths.

The Last Assassins radiates a sick atmosphere, and is more visually accurate. Shows the background of the Art Department in the USA. It does as much to improve cybertelephony in small amounts of clothing as a light installation on top of a substation, holographic displays on traditional car dashboards, or Terminator-style red-filtered security camera readouts. And the final visions of the child, engulfed by a floating, iridescent fetus, experience a free-spirited mania. Being presentable at least allows us to cruise around on dizzying autopilot.