“Onslaught” key art featuring Adria Arjona.
A24
The Onslaught Rotten Tomatoes review score is in, and critics are largely praising the Adria Arjona genre-hybrid movie from Adam Wingard.
Onslaught plays in preview screenings on Thursday before opening in theaters nationwide on Friday. Arjona (Hit Man, Andor) stars as Celeste, an Army sniper who must resort to unleashing hell upon a rogue squad of genetically engineered super soldiers to protect herself and her daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy).
Directed and co-written by Wingard (Godzilla vs. Kong, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire), Onslaught is an amalgam of sci-fi, slasher horror and action. Rated R, Onslaught also stars Dan Stevens, Michael Biehn, Drew Starkey, Alex Pereira and Rebecca Hall (Godzilla vs. Kong, The Beauty).
The review embargo for Onslaught was lifted on Monday, and as of the publication of this article, the film has earned an 82% “fresh” critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer based on 22 reviews. RT’s Critics Consensus, Audience Summary and Popcornmeter score based on verified user ratings are still pending.
Note: This article will be updated with changes to the review score as new reviews are posted on RT.
What Are Individual Critics Saying About ‘Onslaught’?
Angie Han of The Hollywood Reporter is among the top critics on RT who give Onslaught a “fresh” score, writing, “Gloriously crafted if narratively undercooked, the action-thriller is a pretty good time. It’s just that it had seemed for a moment like it was going to be a great one.”
Wilson Chapman of IndieWire also lauds Adam Wingard’s style. Chapman writes in his “fresh” RT review summary, “The action has a satisfying crunch, thanks in part due to Wingard’s delight in dousing his actors in buckets of fake blood.”
Onslaught also is awarded a “fresh” score from Inverse critic Katie Rife, who writes on RT that the “slick, giddy violence tiptoes right up to the edge of distasteful, only to slip on a puddle of blue slushy and juicy red squibs. It’s not like there’s much time to meditate on the futility of violence, anyway: Onslaught flies by at a compact 92 minutes.”
In his “fresh” short take of the film on RT, Nick Schageer of The Daily Beast calls Onslaught “a hodgepodge of everything genre fans adore.”
William Bibbiani of The Wrap is among RT’s top critics who give the film a “rotten” score, writing, “All of Onslaught’s problems would be forgiven if the action and horror it promises, repeatedly, via on-screen ticking clock, were worth the wait. But the film ends just when it’s getting good.”
Simon Abrams of RogerEbert isn’t a fan of Onslaught, either. Abrams writes in his “rotten” RT review summary, “It’s not thoughtful or inspired enough to make you care about its paint-by-numbers story beats, and it’s certainly not angry enough to be disarming.”
Alfonso Duralde of The Film Verdict also gives Onslaught a “rotten” score, calling out Wingard and co-writer Simon Barrett’s script. Duralde writes in his RT review summary, “Wingard and Barrett are clearly going for gut-bucket grindhouse here, but even by those particular standards, Onslaught arrives as a particularly loathsome bucket of guts.”
Onslaught plays in Thursday previews and opens in theaters nationwide on Friday.
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