''Spectral'' is a 2016
3D military science fiction
Military science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction that features the use of science fiction technology, mainly weapons, for military purposes and usually principal characters who are members of a military organization involved in military a ...
,
supernatural horror
Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which is in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J. A ...
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...
and
action-adventure
The action-adventure genre is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres.
Typically, pure adventure games have situational problems for the player to solve to complete a storyli ...
thriller war film
War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about naval, air, or land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war fi ...
directed by Nic Mathieu. Written by himself,
Ian Fried, and
George Nolfi
George Nolfi (born June 10, 1968) is an American filmmaker. He made his directorial debut in 2011 with sci-fi action, romance thriller, ''The Adjustment Bureau'' starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.
Nolfi's work has been known to blend genres an ...
from a story by Fried and Mathieu. The film stars
James Badge Dale
James Badge Dale (born May 1, 1978) is an American actor. He is known for playing Chase Edmunds in '' 24'', Robert Leckie in '' The Pacific'', State Trooper Barrigan in Martin Scorsese's ''The Departed'', Luke Lewenden in '' The Grey'', Eric Sa ...
,
Max Martini
Maximilian Carlo Martini (born December 11, 1969) is an American actor, writer, and director known for his roles as Corporal Fred Henderson in ''Saving Private Ryan'', Wiley in '' Level 9'', First Sergeant Sid Wojo in ''The Great Raid'', and as ...
,
Emily Mortimer
Emily Kathleen Anne Mortimer (born 6 October 1971) is a British-American actress. She began acting in stage productions and has since appeared in several film and television roles. In 2003, she won an Independent Spirit Award for her performance ...
,
Clayne Crawford
Joseph Crawford (born April 20, 1978), known professionally as Clayne Crawford, is an American actor. He is known for portraying the role of Martin Riggs on the Fox action comedy-drama television series ''Lethal Weapon'' (2016–2018). He also p ...
and
Bruce Greenwood
Stuart Bruce Greenwood (born August 12, 1956) is a Canadian actor and producer. He is known for his role as the American president John F. Kennedy in '' Thirteen Days,'' for which he won the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion ...
. The film was released worldwide on December 9, 2016 on
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
.
On February 1, 2017, Netflix released a prequel graphic novel of the film called ''Spectral: Ghosts of War'' which was made available digitally through the website
ComiXology
Iconology Inc., d/b/a ComiXology (styled comiXology), is a cloud-based digital distribution platform for comics owned by Amazon, with over 200 million comic downloads . It offers a selection of more than 100,000 comic books, graphic novels, and ...
.
Plot
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Adv ...
researcher Dr. Mark Clyne flies from
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
to
Moldova
Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The List of states ...
, the current deployment location of the
US military
The United States Armed Forces are the Military, military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six Military branch, service branches: the United States Army, Army, United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, United States N ...
in the ongoing Moldovan War, to be consulted on one of his creations, a line of
hyperspectral imaging
Hyperspectral imaging collects and processes information from across the electromagnetic spectrum. The goal of hyperspectral imaging is to obtain the spectrum for each pixel in the image of a scene, with the purpose of finding objects, identifyi ...
goggles that have been issued to troops there. After arriving at a US military airbase on the outskirts of
Chișinău
Chișinău ( , , ), also known as Kishinev (russian: Кишинёв, r=Kishinjóv ), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Republic of Moldova. The city is Moldova's main industrial and commercial center, and is located in the ...
, he meets with
US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
General
A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers t ...
Orland and
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
officer Fran Madison. They show him footage captured by the troops' goggles of a mysterious, translucent, humanoid apparition that kills almost instantaneously. Knowing it is not interference, Orland wants Clyne's expert opinion before forwarding the findings and footage to his superiors. Conversely, Madison believes the sightings to be members of the local insurgency wearing an advanced form of
active camouflage
Active camouflage or adaptive camouflage is camouflage that adapts, often rapidly, to the surroundings of an object such as an animal or military vehicle. In theory, active camouflage could provide perfect concealment from visual detection.
Activ ...
and has orders from her superiors to retrieve a sample.
To get a clearer shot of the anomalies and identify them, both Clyne and Madison accompany a team of
Delta Force
The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (1st SFOD-D), referred to variously as Delta Force, Combat Applications Group (CAG), Army Compartmented Elements (ACE), "The Unit", or within Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), Task Fo ...
operators into the field to find Utah team that went missing the day before. To capture a better image of the apparitions, Clyne mounts a larger, more powerful version of the hyperspectral camera on top of one of the
armored personnel carrier
An armoured personnel carrier (APC) is a broad type of armoured military vehicle designed to transport personnel and equipment in combat zones. Since World War I, APCs have become a very common piece of military equipment around the world.
Acc ...
s. Upon arriving at the location, they discover all of the members of the Utah team (except one member named Comstock, who is found alive hiding under a bath tub) are dead along with the insurgents. They are ambushed by the apparitions, who, being impervious to small arms fire and explosives, inflict heavy casualties before the soldiers retreat. After
landmine
A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...
s render their vehicles inoperable and kill Comstock, the group takes cover in an abandoned factory where they find two children barricaded inside. The apparitions attempt to follow them but are stopped by a barrier of iron shavings. The children share that their father scattered the shavings to protect his children before he was killed. The survivors make contact with the airbase and set up a rendezvous. Clyne modifies the hyperspectral camera into a large searchlight, which enables the group to see the apparitions without the need for goggles. Clyne points out numerous crates of iron shavings lying around the factory, which the unit uses to turn their grenades into
IEDs
An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional warfare, conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached t ...
laced with iron shavings to give them a fighting chance. Fortified with these new weapons, the group sets out for the rendezvous point about a half-mile away from the factory. About an hour before the extraction time, the apparitions find a way to cross the barrier, forcing the survivors to leave the factory.
The apparitions chase the group, who uses the iron explosives to slow them down. Reinforcements and a helicopter evac join them at the rendezvous point, a largely abandoned plaza. However, they are ambushed by the apparitions and are barely able to escape as the figures kill one of the children and the soldiers sent as backup. Once safely in the air, they receive word from Orland that the apparitions have overrun the airbase, so they are redirected to a civilian bunker controlled by the allied
Moldovan military. Thinking over what he learned from the young girl they have rescued, Clyne deduces the apparitions are likely man-made and are made of
Bose-Einstein condensate, which explains their ability to move through walls, freeze people to death, and the inability to pass through iron shavings and ceramic materials (hence their inability to penetrate
ceramic tank armor and Comstock's hiding place under the bath tub). Working overnight with Orland and surviving military engineers, he constructs several makeshift pulse weapons capable of breaking down the condensate. The next morning, the remaining American soldiers head to the Masarov power plant in the center of the city by
V-22 Ospreys, as Clyne believes it is the only facility capable of generating the power needed to create the condensate.
While the soldiers mount an offensive distraction on the roof of the plant, Clyne and Madison descend down to a recently overrun laboratory inside. They deduce that scientists, working in weapons research for the former regime, were scanning humans on a molecular level and using advanced
3D printing
3D printing or additive manufacturing is the Manufacturing, construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design, CAD model or a digital 3D modeling, 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is ...
to replicate them in condensate form. The human test subjects' brains and
peripheral nervous system
The peripheral nervous system (PNS) is one of two components that make up the nervous system of bilateral animals, with the other part being the central nervous system (CNS). The PNS consists of nerves and ganglia, which lie outside the brain ...
s were then removed and hooked up to a central machine that keeps the condensate copies (or "apparitions") alive. With the battle above threatening to release the remaining condensates, Clyne finally finishes activation of the
failsafe
In engineering, a fail-safe is a design feature or practice that in the event of a specific type of failure, inherently responds in a way that will cause minimal or no harm to other equipment, to the environment or to people. Unlike inherent safe ...
system, which deactivates the condensate apparitions. Believing that whatever level of consciousness remaining is in pain, he unplugs the human remains from the machine, finally giving them peace.
With the apparitions gone, the US and allied Moldovan military continue their work of taking control of the city from the insurgents. A
Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to:
Current departments of defence
* Department of Defence (Australia)
* Department of National Defence (Canada)
* Department of Defence (Ireland)
* Department of National Defense (Philippin ...
extraction team is to be sent back to the plant with the Delta Force operators to take the machinery apart and potentially use it for their own purposes. Saying goodbye to Madison and General Orland, Clyne boards a V-22 Osprey to be taken back home to Virginia.
Cast
*
James Badge Dale
James Badge Dale (born May 1, 1978) is an American actor. He is known for playing Chase Edmunds in '' 24'', Robert Leckie in '' The Pacific'', State Trooper Barrigan in Martin Scorsese's ''The Departed'', Luke Lewenden in '' The Grey'', Eric Sa ...
as Clyne, a
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Adv ...
scientist
*
Emily Mortimer
Emily Kathleen Anne Mortimer (born 6 October 1971) is a British-American actress. She began acting in stage productions and has since appeared in several film and television roles. In 2003, she won an Independent Spirit Award for her performance ...
as Fran Madison, a
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
officer who runs
Delta Force
The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (1st SFOD-D), referred to variously as Delta Force, Combat Applications Group (CAG), Army Compartmented Elements (ACE), "The Unit", or within Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), Task Fo ...
operations in Moldova's war torn capital
*
Max Martini
Maximilian Carlo Martini (born December 11, 1969) is an American actor, writer, and director known for his roles as Corporal Fred Henderson in ''Saving Private Ryan'', Wiley in '' Level 9'', First Sergeant Sid Wojo in ''The Great Raid'', and as ...
as CPT Major Sessions, the leader of the Delta Force team
*
Bruce Greenwood
Stuart Bruce Greenwood (born August 12, 1956) is a Canadian actor and producer. He is known for his role as the American president John F. Kennedy in '' Thirteen Days,'' for which he won the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion ...
as General Orland, the leader of US Army troops deployed to fight in the Moldovan War
*
Clayne Crawford
Joseph Crawford (born April 20, 1978), known professionally as Clayne Crawford, is an American actor. He is known for portraying the role of Martin Riggs on the Fox action comedy-drama television series ''Lethal Weapon'' (2016–2018). He also p ...
as SGT Toll
*
Gonzalo Menendez as Cabrera
*
Ursula Parker
Ursula Parker (born July 28, 2003) is an American actress and violinist best known for her role as Jane in the television series ''Louie''. She had prominent roles in the 2015 film '' Take Me to the River'' and the 2016 film ''Spectral
''Spe ...
as Sari, a young
Moldovan girl
*
Louis Ozawa Changchien
Louis Ozawa Changchien (born October 11, 1975) is an American actor best known for his role in the films ''Predators'' ( 2010) and '' The Bourne Legacy'' (2012).
Early life and education
Changchien was born in Queens, New York and raised in New Y ...
as SGT Chen
*
Cory Hardrict
Cory Hardrict (born November 9, 1979) is an American actor. He has appeared in film and television since the late 1990s.
Personal life
Hardrict was born in Chicago, Illinois. After dating for six years, Hardrict and actress Tia Mowry were engage ...
as Alessio
* Aaron Serban as Bogdan, Sari's little brother
* Dylan Smith as Talbot
*
Jimmy Akingbola
James Olatokunbo Akingbola (born 7 April 1978) is an English television, theatre and film actor.
Early life
Jimmy Akingbola was born in London to parents of the Yoruba tribe who had emigrated from Nigeria.
In 1996, Akingbola started at the A ...
as McFadden
*
Ryan Robbins
Ryan John Currier (born November 26, 1972), better known as Ryan Robbins, is a Canadian actor.
Early life
Robbins was born in Victoria, British Columbia.
Career
Robbins is known for his roles as Ladon Radim in ''Stargate Atlantis'', Henry F ...
as Comstock
*
Stephen Root
Stephen Root (born November 17, 1951) is an American actor. He has starred as Jimmy James on the television sitcom ''NewsRadio'', as Milton Waddams in the film ''Office Space'' (1999), and provided the voices of Bill Dauterive and Buck Stricklan ...
as Dr. Mindala
*
Philip Bulcock
Philip Bulcock (born 6 July 1970) is an English actor who has appeared in numerous award-winning film and theatre productions. He played the part of The Four Seasons' bassist and vocal arranger, Nick Massi in the original cast of the Olivier A ...
as SGT Davis
*
Royce Pierreson
Royce Pierreson (born 1 April 1989) is a British actor and narrator. Royce is best known for his roles as DC Jamie Desford in the fourth series of '' Line of Duty'' and as Reece in ''Murdered by My Boyfriend.''
He has since appeared as Dr Ja ...
as Diaz
* Declan Hannigan as Hayden
* Mark O'Neal as Lewis
* Michael Bodie as Efrem
Production
During the summer of 2014,
Legendary Pictures
Legendary Pictures Productions, LLC (doing business as Legendary Entertainment or simply Legendary) is an American film production and mass media company based in Burbank, California, founded by Thomas Tull in 2000. The company has collaborated ...
and
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
announced that commercials
director
Director may refer to:
Literature
* ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine
* ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker
* ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty
Music
* Director (band), an Irish rock band
* ''Di ...
Nic Mathieu would make his feature debut directing Fried's screenplay for the supernatural action film ''Spectral'' which would star
James Badge Dale
James Badge Dale (born May 1, 1978) is an American actor. He is known for playing Chase Edmunds in '' 24'', Robert Leckie in '' The Pacific'', State Trooper Barrigan in Martin Scorsese's ''The Departed'', Luke Lewenden in '' The Grey'', Eric Sa ...
,
Max Martini
Maximilian Carlo Martini (born December 11, 1969) is an American actor, writer, and director known for his roles as Corporal Fred Henderson in ''Saving Private Ryan'', Wiley in '' Level 9'', First Sergeant Sid Wojo in ''The Great Raid'', and as ...
,
Bruce Greenwood
Stuart Bruce Greenwood (born August 12, 1956) is a Canadian actor and producer. He is known for his role as the American president John F. Kennedy in '' Thirteen Days,'' for which he won the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion ...
and
Emily Mortimer
Emily Kathleen Anne Mortimer (born 6 October 1971) is a British-American actress. She began acting in stage productions and has since appeared in several film and television roles. In 2003, she won an Independent Spirit Award for her performance ...
. Described as a supernatural ''
Black Hawk Down'', ''Spectral'' centers on a special-ops team dispatched to fight supernatural beings who have taken over a European city.
Ian Fried wrote the original script, which was re-written by Mathieu,
Jamie Moss
Jamie Moss is an American screenwriter.
Filmography
*''Street Kings'' (2008)
*''X-Men: First Class'' (2011, uncredited)
*''Rise of the Planet of the Apes'' (2011, uncredited)
*''Spectral (film), Spectral'' (2016)
*''Ghost in the Shell (2017 fil ...
,
John Gatins
John Gatins (born April 16, 1968) is an American screenwriter, director, and actor. For writing the drama film ''Flight (2012 film), Flight'' (2012), he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Gatins made his directori ...
and
George Nolfi
George Nolfi (born June 10, 1968) is an American filmmaker. He made his directorial debut in 2011 with sci-fi action, romance thriller, ''The Adjustment Bureau'' starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.
Nolfi's work has been known to blend genres an ...
, who received sole screenwriting credit, with Mathieu and Fried receiving story credit.
Principal photography
Principal photography began on August 7, 2014. Shooting started on August 28, 2014 in various streets and buildings in
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
,
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
, relying extensively on practical effects and locations for an authentic, gritty atmosphere. Locations included
Buda Castle
Buda Castle ( hu, Budavári Palota, german: link=no, Burgpalast) is the historical castle and palace complex of the Hungarian Kings in Budapest. It was first completed in 1265, although the massive Baroque palace today occupying most of the si ...
, which served as the location of the landing zone scene, and
Gellért Hill
Gellért Hill ( hu, Gellért-hegy; german: Blocksberg; la, Mons Sancti Gerhardi tr, Gürz İlyas Bayırı) is a high hill overlooking the Danube in Budapest, Hungary. It is located in the 1st and the 11th districts. The hill was named after ...
. Filming was completed in August 2015.
Peter Jackson
Sir Peter Robert Jackson (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best known as the director, writer and producer of the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy (2001–2003) and the ''Hobbit'' trilogy ( ...
’s
Weta Workshop produced the futuristic weapons and
Weta Digital created the visual effects for the film.
Universal Pictures anticipated a release in August 2016 but decided against this and transferred the rights to Netflix which released it on December 9, 2016.
Release
Initially,
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
was going to distribute the film, setting an August 12, 2016 release date for the film. In June 2016, the film was pulled from the schedule.
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
later acquired distribution rights to the film and released the film worldwide on December 9, 2016.
On February 1, 2017, Netflix released a prequel comic of the movie called ''Spectral: Ghosts of War'' made available digitally through the website
ComiXology
Iconology Inc., d/b/a ComiXology (styled comiXology), is a cloud-based digital distribution platform for comics owned by Amazon, with over 200 million comic downloads . It offers a selection of more than 100,000 comic books, graphic novels, and ...
.
Critical reception
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
gives the film an approval rating of 78% based on 9 reviews, with an average rating of 5.70/10.
Writing for ''
The Verge
''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts.
The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media' ...
'', Tasha Robinson summarises "It’s understandable that Netflix jumped at the chance to grab what was intended as a big-screen, large-scale thriller. But ''Spectral'' winds up feeling like a much smaller film, like something that was intended for a casual streaming experience all along."
References
Further reading
The science of Spectral: Is that really how Bose–Einstein condensate behaves? An actual Bose–Einstein condensate scientist reviews Spectral's science. Plus a response from the film's director, Nic Mathieu. Thilo Stöferle. July 18, 2017.
Ars Technica
''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...
. Accessed June 4, 2021.
External links
*
on
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
*
*
*
*
* {{Mojo title, spectral
2016 films
2016 action thriller films
2016 directorial debut films
2016 science fiction action films
2010s war films
American 3D films
American action thriller films
American science fiction action films
English-language Netflix original films
Films produced by Thomas Tull
Films scored by Junkie XL
Films set in Moldova
Films shot in Budapest
Films with screenplays by George Nolfi
Legendary Pictures films
Military science fiction films
Techno-thriller films
2010s American films