Australian Sci Fi/Fantasy ‘Ascendant’ is a Quick Descent into Mind-Numbing Nonsense

Plot: A young environmentalist wakes up and realises she has been kidnapped and trapped in the elevator of a super high-rise building at the mercy of her tormentors.

Review: A girl is trapped in an elevator. Elevator goes up, elevator comes down. Elevator goes up, elevator comes down. Elevator goes up, elevator comes—WHAT THE HELL EVEN IS THIS MOVIE?!!

We’re gonna need you to put the lotion on your skin or you get the hose again

It’s like the world’s worst joke—all set-up with zero punchline! I kept waiting for something to happen, or for the story to deliver on the background it would occasionally give on these characters. But all I got was some weird reveal that didn’t fit with the rest of the movie. SPOILER ALERT (and I don’t care)…ready?…the girl has superpowers. Do they do anything with this? Not really. Does she seek revenge against the people who trapped her in the elevator and forced her to watch as they tortured her father for information? Nope! She literally walks off, leaving the one-dimensional villain to go on his merry way.

And don’t get me started on the physics of this damn elevator. Every time they dropped the elevator she would slam into the ceiling before falling on the floor. This may LOOK cool for a movie, but I’m sorry to disappoint the person who wrote this ridiculous screenplay but elevators don’t work like that. It would literally have to be going ten times the speed it was to make the person inside hit the ceiling like that. The whole thing was just stupid and I felt like some of my brain cells died watching this nonsense.

When you fart in an elevator and hope no one notices…

I could’ve forgiven the plot holes and bad physics if Ascendant (formerly known as Rising Wolf <get it?> and not to be confused with the cancelled final chapter of the Divergent series) delivered on its reveal. But literally nothing happens in this entire movie, other than a girl getting bounced around in an elevator. 1983 Sci Fi Horror The Lift is a THOUSAND TIMES better than this, and that movie is about a demonic elevator for crying out loud!

This is one elevator I wish would be out of service, permanently.

Sommer’s Score: 2 out of 10

For another Sci Fi film about an elevator that is a thousand times better than Ascendant you can check out Editor Jules’s review of The Platform by clicking here. Or for my review of Sci Fi adventure Chaos Walking you can click here.

2755F829-2EEC-4A68-B6F7-F963F48C9D92 Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes.

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