The Stratum (2022) Movie Review

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The Stratum – Movie Review

Director: Crash Buist

Writer: Crash Buist, Lauren Senechal (Screenplay)

Cast

Crash Buist (Hellblazers)
Lauren Senechal
Jonathan Medina (The Terminal List)
Ramin Karimloo (Tomorrow Morning)
Wayne T Carr (The Tragedy of Macbeth)

Plot: In the year 2054, a greedy CEO takes control of the Earth, and it’s up to his rebellious daughter and a cyberpunk hacker to save mankind.

Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

Story: The Stratum starts as we enter a world filled with illness, humans must wear masks to survive. William Wright (Karimloo) has created a place in space for humans to rebuild, a place where he keeps his daughter Ayla (Senechal). Meanwhile, Edgar Bane (Medina) hires cyberpunk hacker James Walsh (Buist) to break into Ayla’s existence.

This sees James dive into a world he isn’t prepared for. He gets to know Ayla and doesn’t know which side of the battle is more honest. James learns he has the fate of humanity in his own hands.

Verdict on The Stratum

The Stratum is a sci-fi thriller following a cyber hacker that is hired to get close to a subject. He must pretend to be an A.I. figure in a virtual reality world, as he gets close to the subject. However, outside of this mission, he finds himself drawn into a war between a rebellion and a CEO controlling the people of Earth’s choices.

This is a movie that will put our lead character in a moral dilemma. He needs to decide which side of a war he wants to be part of as he starts to fall for the woman, he must get close to. This does give us an interesting vision of a world changed by air pollution and illness. It shows the divide between people who don’t want to work together to solve problems.

The idea of a changed world is placed in this movie, however, we don’t see too much of a change in it. Apart from the breathing machine in the open world, it doesn’t seem like there is a big change on Earth. When it comes to the pods, we only get a glimpse of one, it isn’t made clear how much has truly changed.

The character of James Walsh reminds me a lot of Scott Lang. He doesn’t seem to take too much seriously but needs to step up when he learns how serious the situation is. The performances in the film are strong as we see strong chemistry between Crash Buist and Lauren Senechal.

Final Thoughts – The Stratum is a slick sci-fi film.