“Rogue” is a Megan Fox-headlined action-suspense tale from the accomplished director M.J. Bassett who helmed various TV shows before delving into feature films. Bassett also directed “Solomon Kane,” a 2009 entry that dealt with unsavory entities hundreds of years ago, and the intriguing sequel “Silent Hill: Revelation” in 2012.
Now, with “Rogue,” Bassett enters the action phase of Fox’s solo career.
Fox brought in the male teen crowd with her turn as Shia LeBeouf’s girlfriend in the Michael Bay-directed “Transformers” in 2007.
She then went on to do the “meh” live action Michael Bay-produced “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (2014) and, a couple of years later, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows,” once again teaming her up with Bay as producer.
In a system that currently has nothing but male headliners in most stories and franchises, it is nice to see a change. America embraced Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen in “The Hunger Games” tales a few years ago, but the studios can’t seem to find that niche for well-written tales and stories featuring women.
Megan Fox, Sisanda Henna, and Greg Kriek star in “Rogue.” Photo courtesy IMDB.com
Earlier this summer, I was looking forward to “Black Widow” with Scarlett Johansson returning as Natasha Romanoff, one of the members of The Avengers, but all this COVID stuff has put a giant monkey wrench into the film production grinder.
But I digress. Since we’re here to talk about “Rogue,” a Lionsgate title that has essentially replaced the small studios in the effort to give the American public a wider viewing library.
The plot essentially deals with a group of baddies who kidnap girls traveling abroad and uses said girls as bargaining chips for ransom.
Fox, like James Franco a few years back, was part of a system that I felt America should embrace. Sure, she is talented and easy on the eyes, but one just has to ask why I should invest my time with a star who has had more misses than hits in recent years. “Jonah Hex” (2010) with Josh Brolin comes to mind when discussing her career path. Even the star power of Brolin could not even save that tale.
I would recommend “Rogue” as a fun time-waster, but there are many other titles I could recommend.
Among them, “The Old Guard,” “6 Underground” and “Enola Holmes,” recently added to the Netflix line-up of fun, family flicks.
“Rogue” is worth a watch, but as I recently pointed out there are others I would recommend over this so-so flick.
Grade: C+
