Robbie Amell

Stephen Amell

Kari Matchett

Penny Eizenga

Lawrence Bayne

Jai Jai Jones

Alex Mallari Jr.

Shaun Benson

Sung Kang

Aaron Abrams

Martin Roach

Nneka Elliott

Matthew Gouveia

Kevin Claydon

Laysla De Oliveira

Vlad Alexis

Ho Chow

Simon Northwood

Peter Outerbridge

Ess Hödlmoser

Greg Bryk

Kyla Kane

Karissa Strain

Max Laferriere

Merwin Mondesir

Casey Hudecki

Darrin Baker

JaNae Armogan

Jeff Sinasac

John MacDonald

Chris Handfield

Natalie Lisinska

Emma Ho

Herschel Andoh

Oscar A. Gonzalez

Charlie Riina

Nichole Arya Lentz

Christine Pagulayan

Dane Bingenheimer

Michelle Doiron

Josh Aguirre

Derek Barnes

Glenda Braganza

Nick Ford

Michelle Hill

Lisa Hinds

Eldon Hunter

Elena Khan

Heidi Matijevic

Kris Pring

Attila Sebesy

Joe Vercillo

Michelle Cormier

Q Fortier

Lize van der Bijl

Laura Menheere

Roberto Palomeque

Ace McCallum

Thomas Therrien

Miguel Basulto

Allan Cooke

Hasan Dadah

Adam Collver

Spencer Wyatt

Daniel Sun

Jeff Chan

Lee Kim

Alex Disenhof

Chris Crane

Neesha Patki

David Gruer

Grant Boyle

Wayne Marc Godfrey

Zoë Bigio

Robert Jones

Andrea Kristof

Jay Douglas

Anna Catley

Tiamat Ownby Fox

Jason Knight

Chris Paré

William Chang

Peter Huang

Eric Diep

Mary Anne Waterhouse

Ryan Taubert

Bernadette Croft

John Buchan

Paul Skinner

Ramon Palermo

Omar Spahi

Cynthia Guidry

Wade Odlum

Sascha Penn

Lainie Guidry

Dustin Harris

Brody Ratsoy

Michael Davison

Kelly Brennan

Ian Watson

Ira Cohen

Consuelo Solar

Neil Davison

Jasmin Morrison

Jeff Moberg

Priscilla Galvez

Vic Rigler

Rob Turi

Michael Heathcote

Bruce Fleming

Tim O'Connell

Michael Innanen

Steve Blair

Brian Campbell

Charles McGlynn

Chris Pizzarelli

Trevor Goulet

Alon Isocianu

Jonathan Gaudet

Adam McDonald

Fernando Feio Fontana

David Lewington

Marika Latorcai

Nicholas Wong

Marlaina Lanese

Monica Pavez

Laura Keightley

Justin Perreault

Matthew Kariatsumari

Sang Hoon Hwang

Daphne Chen

Geoff Ashenhurst

Andy Cung

Jeremy Lyall

Bonnie McCabe

Stephanie Nash

Stuart Pearce

Charlotte Robertson

Ross Fasullo

Robert Tagliaferri

Steven Huynh

Mark Driver

Stephanie Bleakley

Ryan Freer

Sean Anicic

Lisa Ghione

Code 8 Collection

Science Fiction

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Code 8

Colony Pictures

The Fyzz

Lane E Productions

XYZ Films

Blue Ice Pictures

Téléfilm Canada

Collective Pictures

Canada

United Kingdom

United States of America

English

drug trafficking

dystopia

superhero

remake

co-workers relationship

super power

criminal gang

robot cop

combat drone

mother son relationship

based on short

tense

Gimly

I thought the trailer made _Code 8_ look like it was gonna be pretty bad, but I liked the premise, and I wanted to see what Stephen Amell could do in a 2019 feature film, so I gave it a chance, and while I don't think it was great, it was better than I had been expecting. There were some bits that sort of reminded me of last year's _Darkest Minds_, and that's definitely a bad thing, but overall it was actually pretty decent. It goes for both the social commentary, and a *pew pew splodey zap zap* action crime thriller. It doesn't work **spectacularly** as either, but it tries, and its failures certainly are not abysmal ones. 

_Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole._

Peter McGinn

Code 8 never really grabbed me, though I managed to watch it all the way through. Perhaps I am an outlier viewer, but I would have liked to see more time spent on why society lowered the status of the super-powered people to practically second class citizens. To me that might have been more compelling viewing than the details of Connor’s descent into crime or his mother’s rather stereotypical declining health. But within its narrow plot and limited number of interesting characters, it may have been less than great, but it was better than mediocre.

CinemaSerf

Robbie Amell is undoubtedly a good-looking man, but that really does not forgive the fact that as an actor, he is really dead behind the eyes. The concept here is quite interesting - ordinary people have superpowers and are all still pretty much persecuted by the authorities. Amell is down on his luck and has a sick mother so, to pay for her extortionately expensive treatment, he seeks work casually - and soon falls in with the wrong company where he uses his powers (he can generate and focus electricity) to further their petty, but increasingly ambitious criminal activities. This gets him caught up between a drug-smuggling gang and with the pursuing police. Cousin Stephen discards his bow and arrow for this film, instead heading the druggie gang that will betray everyone/anyone as soon as look at them. The dialogue and pace of the film - there are some decent action scenes - keep it moving quite well, and the visual effects do their job - but the acting is just bland and the story an amalgam of B-grade X-men themes.

Code 8 is X-Men minus the budget and the A-list cast, and that's the good news. Unfortunately, the movie suffers more, not when it deviates from, but when it copies Marvel's mutants. Code 8 is set in a world where 4% of the population are born with various supernatural abilities, but instead of being rich and famous, they face discrimination, live in poverty, and often turn to crime.

As far as I can tell, Code 8 is an allegory about illegal immigrants in the US – the image of day laborers waiting for a van to take them to work is unmistakable, because we have seen it in other, better films (e.g., El Norte). There is also the matter of an addictive narcotic called Psyke manufactured from the cerebrospinal fluid of the People with Power (doesn't quite have the same ring as X-Men, does it?); a drug literally made by and for them.

Addressing that some immigrants are forced to smuggle and sell drugs while others turn to alcohol and other drugs to cope with depression and anxiety is one of the things that Code 8 does well. The problem is that the movie doesn't seem to understand that illegal immigrants do these things because they are powerless. If Mexicans entering the United States illegally had the kind of power that Code 8 characters have, Los Angeles would have been returned to Mexico a long time ago.

Connor and his similarly 'empowered' peers are oppressed because they want to be; what prison could contain them? I estimate that four “People with Powers” could reasonably demand that the President “kneel to Zod” within a week at most.

We know where illegal immigrants come from; of places where, to put it in the terms of the United States Declaration of Independence, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are nothing short of impossible (otherwise they'd stay put). Conversely, establishing the origin of the protagonists' powers in Code 8 is not as simple.

Like those of the X-Men, these powers are unexplained – and unexplainable –, and include the usual for a superhero (manipulation of electricity, superhuman strength), as well as, for lack of a better term, magic (telepathy, telekinesis) and finally, as Jules Winnfield would say, "miracles according to Hoyle" (healing the sick). Consider this: Sutcliffe's main lackey is bulletproof. Bulletproof! How does one even go about becoming bulletproof?

Code 8 is a very imaginative movie (my favorite part is the Guardians, robot cops that drop from drones), but it has absolutely zero curiosity about its own characters. Where do their powers come from? How do they work? And why don't they use them on a larger scale? These are all questions that Code 8 doesn't answer because it doesn't even bother to ask them.

Chandler Danier

Good use of budget. Interesting enough. Good ideas. I watched it because I thought I had to because Code 8 part two was out as well. I probably wouldn't have watched it without that. I'm glad I watched it.

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Code 8( 2019)

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A review by Gimly

Written by Gimly on Mon Dec 30 2019

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