Rent Shadow in the Cloud (2020)

Shadow in the Cloud review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Upon the film’s first mention of Gremlins, the immediate reference one might jump to for such a film (besides the obvious Bugs Bunny short parodied in the opening) is that of the Twilight Zone episode where a passenger on plane witnesses a monster on the wing that nobody else can see. As if to not make that comparison apparent, Shadow in the Cloud mixes in a whole lot of other stuff for its genre-mixing mash. You’ll get elements of war drama, relationship drama, war action, and a 1980s soundtrack. Perhaps if all of this was thrown into the mix, there’d be some sort of retro allure matching that of pulpy comic books. Sadly, it’s more of a mess than anything.

Chloë Grace Moretz plays Maude, a pilot in 1943 who has just hopped aboard a B-17 bomber for a secret mission. Stashed in a turret cockpit, she endures the radio chatter of the boys speaking about her in an uncomfortable manner. She has instructed them not to open a mysterious box she has brought aboard, stating that it is confidential and opening it would mean a court-martial. However, Maude may be more than she appears as her tone starts to change the nosy the crew gets of her actions.

A whole lot of stuff happens during this first act. A gremlin is seating ripping up the exterior of the plane from an angle only Maude can see. The package is opened and some soap-opera level drama comes about on the plane. And then Japanese jet fighters start shooting up the bomber. So with all three of these elements going on at the same time, there’s a real conflict of tones throughout. The 1980s synth soundtrack doesn’t help either, laying thick on the electronica for a film set during World War II.

I think the moment where all of this starts going downhill fast is when Maude gets out of the cockpit. For the first act, she’s trapped inside this turret and I got a little intrigued as to if this was a minimalist bottle movie. However, it becomes clear that isn’t the case when Maude, seeing the gremlin on the outside of the bomber has her package, decides to scale the outside to secure it. In this sequence, there’s some lackluster compositing and questionable computer graphics. Also worth noting is how the gremlins change throughout the film. In the first act, we’re introduced to the creature through the darkness of night, concealing the creature in shadows. By the end of the film, however, he’s out in daylight, and engaging in hand-to-hand combat with Maude is more than just a little awkward.

So much of this film just doesn’t work because it feels like too many elements crammed into a blender with none of it working. It’s also not too surprising that such a faltering script was co-written by Max Landis, considering it’s teeming with politically incorrect sexist and racist slang slinging which seems ridiculously overdone for a story set in the 1940s. The action is jarring with the ho-hum visual effects, the dialogue all over the place, and the style is such a conflict of lighting, music, and tension. It could have been a retro bit of EC comics or even Heavy Metal style fiction blending but not in its current state of cobbled together elements.