Dark Asset – Review

Great looking, fun, well made B Movie type sci-fi action.

Prepare for a high-octane ride as acclaimed action star Byron Mann (Wu Assassins, The Big Short) takes the lead as an undercover operative with a dark secret who takes no prisoners with his ruthless fighting skills. He stars alongside Robert Patrick (The Protégé, Terminator 2) and Helena Mattsson (American Horror Story, Seven Psychopaths) in this all-out action feature.

When stylish and mysterious John (Byron Mann) meets the distinctly unimpressed Jane (Helena Mattsson) in a bar, he tries to win her over with tales of spies, implanted microchips and a dangerous scientist Dr. Cain (Robert Patrick), who is hunting him down. But is this tantalising tale more than mere fiction, is enigmatic storyteller John really who he claims to be and can his eager listener be trusted?

A seemingly simple story in a bar quickly takes viewers on an adrenaline-fuelled adventure into a world of super-human strength, dangerous intelligence and murky underground science organisations. Nothing is as it seems in this super slick feature.

Discover Dark Asset – an ultra-stylish blend of exhilarating espionage with a sci-fi edge.

Dark Asset is a very watchable sci-fi action film with a decent amount of well done action set pieces. The very exposition heavy dialogue is hidden well by being used in a “conversation in a bar” where John explains to Jane what’s going on.

There’s some nice action set pieces and Byron Mann does well in these and looks great, unfortunately in the scenes opposite Mattson he seems to just have a cheesy grin on his face.

The doctor being played by Robert Patrick makes the HUD even more noticeably Terminator like. It tells our hero everything in every situation, although it does seem to lack the ability to tell him how many bullets a gun has in it.

Some of the sets are a little on the “Low budget sci-fi movie” side, but this just adds to the fun.

There’s a particular scene which is like an advert for “action movie overlays” and has the most indestructible tiny wooden table ever seen, I loved it.

All of the actors are up to the task and the script is only slightly clunky in parts. The storyline is slightly contrived and there’s no real part of it that’s particularly gripping with characters changing their overall manner randomly throughout, however everything wraps up in a really satisfying way.

The music score in it is a bit of a one trick pony, with scenes with no real action happening having the same threatening soundtrack over the top of them, quite weird at times.

Basically Dark Asset’s just great looking, fun, well made B Movie type sci-fi action. It’s not going to blow your socks off at any point, but it will fill an hour and a half without you feeling like you’ve wasted your time.