Summary
Soulcatcher is a bad Netflix streaming film that has laughable special effects along with a manipulative and lazy plot.
Here is our review of the 2023 Netflix movie Soulcatcher, which does not contain significant spoilers.
Soulcatcher squanders a fun horror premise and waters the film down into a jaw-droppingly bad action thriller. While the opening sequence holds so much promise, with the sound of IEDs blowing up in the distance as savage humans rush like lemmings, the film jumps headfirst off a cliff after that point.
The movie forgets what should be its main selling points—taking a buttery popcorn fun plot, a charismatic lead, a pretty girl, and pleasant buddy chemistry with the cast—in an enjoyable afternoon streaming diversion. Instead, the filmmakers snatch our cinematic souls straight from our naive hearts.
Soulcatcher (2023) Review and Plot Summary
Soulcatcher is a Polish Netflix action thriller by Daniel Markowicz, starring one of their regular film players, Piotr Witkowski. The film follows a military contractor, Fang (Witkowski), and his team, who are hired by Poland’s Minister of Defense to rescue Eliza, a woman with information about a mad military General named Yousif.
However, they come across a machine called Soulcatcher, which was initially made to cure cancer but now turns people into bloodthirsty savages. After the device turns Fang’s brother against him, he can’t return home unharmed.
However, the Minister sends him back in to kill the scientist who invented the weapon and bring it home, hoping to fix the machine to help cancer-stricken patients.
By Daniel Markowicz (Lesson Plan), working with a script he co-wrote with Dawid Kowalewicz, Soulcatcher is a trope-filled cliché in the worst ways imaginable. First, the bad guys are trying to buy the device to arm an African warlord. They purchase the weapon with the smallest amount of money I’ve ever seen (not to mention, why not use a digital transaction?).
The script is filled with exposition and over-the-top scenes to establish villainy. (Yousif gives up one of his men instead of one of the hundreds of citizens as a sacrificial lamb to prove the device works.) Despite all that exposition, you still need to learn about the characters. I mean, other than one side represents the just, and the other, the unjust.
The script also lacks a second act and feels like an extension of the first, with a pure cornball plot. The device looks like something taken from Dr. Evil’s collection. They never explain in detail why such a device turns from answering cancer patients’ prayers to a zombie maker. The entire subplot is very manipulative and lazy.
Witkowski and Michalina Olszanska, who plays Eliza, have plenty of chemistry and are a handsome pair.
However, the movie would have benefited from some over-the-top romance between the two. If you are going to make a cheesy, SyFy-level special effects-driven movie (I swear, even watching Soulcatcher on your phone, the CGI still looks amateurish), you might as well own it.
Is Soulcatcher (2023) good or bad?
Soulcatcher is a bad Netflix streaming film. The leads have little to work with when it comes to Marcowicz and Kowalewicz’s script. The special effects are of poor quality. The plot is manipulative and lazy.
Is Soulcatcher (2023) worth watching?
Soulcatcher is not worth watching, even on your worst days when you need some trashy comfort cinema to forget about your troubles. Piotr Witkowski and the rest of the cast deserved better.
What did you think of the 2023 Netflix movie Soulcatcher? Comment below.
