DEoL @ London Film Festival 2026 #6 - Rogue Trooper (UK 2026: Dir Duncan Jones)

After Jones's dreadful Warcraft back in 2016, the prospect of more animation from the director filled me with dread. Rogue Trooper, based on a strip from the '2000 AD' comic, was a labour of love for Jones, and it shows. This is a 'Mocap' feature (you know, Avatar, that kind of thing) with a stellar UK cast providing the voices (and the sources of the faces). At the screening I attended, the majority of the audience were thirty something blokes clearly at ease with the gaming culture look of the movie (although I heard one guy on the way out saying that he felt sick throughout...and I know what he means).

Anyway, what's it all about? Well as far as I can ascertain - and there's a lot of content -  it's set on a wartorn and environmentally poisoned version of earth, the location for a long term battle between the 'Norts' and the 'Southers' (the latter's rousing battle song plays over the opening and closing credits). 

19, a 'genetic infantryman' (Aneurin Barnard) is one of a squad of adapted soldiers developed by the 'Southers', with personalities that can be removed and placed in new bodies on death; the ultimate killing machines (although the fact that the reanimated 'souls' of the GIs (geddit?) sometimes end up in guns or backpacks provides a lot of the movie's often spot on humour).

A betrayal within the ranks decimates 19's regiment, and it's up to him to infiltrate the enemy and discover the mole. This pretty simple setup is occluded with a barrage of characters, situations and noise that will have anyone unfamiliar with this kind of thing (non gamers who don't sit very close to their TVs then) exhausted.

But gradually the mo-cap mist clears and this viewer really started to enjoy themselves. The cast is stuffed with UK comedy regulars; Diane Morgan is a stiff backed colonel, Matt Berry 'plays' one half of a dodgy sales team, looking to sell 19 off, and Hayley Atwell makes a mid movie appearance as a tough vigilante named Venus Bluegenes. This is bold stuff from Jones, a director not afraid to take risks, and I really hope it does well at the box office when released.

Rogue Trooper is also a proudly British production (although with come Canadian money) from its comic book origins to the fact that it was made in a video game studio in Oxfordshire. It's bold, brash, frequently looks amazing, but viewer it takes some getting used to (or maybe that's just me being an old git). Oddly I'm desperate to see it again.