‘Hope’ Review: Na Hong-jin’s First Act Monster Mash is Overlong Schlockbuster Core [C-] Cannes
Simply the idea of coming to the Cannes Film Festival carries with it a slew of hopes and dreams, a true pinch me experience at one of the most glamorous and prestigious international film festivals. Being among the first to screen an absurd number of world premieres is among the many privileges offered to those who attend. For this year’s festival, director Thierry Frémaux noted that the selection committee narrowed a whopping 2,541 submitted films down to a mere 22, those of which compete for the most highly coveted awards, including the Palme d’Or. Hope, by South Korean filmmaker Na Hong-jin, is one of these honored and highly anticipated works, especially considering all four of his films have premiered at the festival and this marks his first In Competition. The promotion, of sorts, has compounded Na’s already high expectations for a movie he hopes will become a blockbuster and save the theatrical experience. However, for as much hope this international larger-than-life, genre-bursting monster flick promises itself to be, this unnecessary, unfinished 160-minute first act of a supposed trilogy is cosmically hopeless.
The problem in shrouding itself in mystery as an expansive, humanity-saving, near-apocalyptic catch-all is not even that it overextends itself as a rich text, though there are bones of a deeper story that could be worth telling, like that found in its subtle anti-North Korean sentiments. The human story is flimsy with the poorly-developed characters acting in total service of the comic relief or action at hand. The film opens during an investigation of strange sightings in Hope Harbor, a town near the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, most notably including mutilated cows mauled by massive claws. Lions and tigers and bears–oh my!–are suspected as being the culprit, though anyone the aloof Chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min, The Wailing) questions denies the possibility outright. A gory trail leads him and other hunters, including his fearless cousin, Sung-ki (Zo In-sung), through the decimated town, the tracks and eerie roars approaching until after nearly 45 minutes, the monster finally appears: a grotesque, nine-foot-tall, green dinosaur-like demon.
The vast scale of the destruction, like the world of the film, expands exponentially as the journey progresses. The production touts itself as being the highest budget for any Korean film and follows through with meticulous, endless on location set design that further benefits from the beautiful environments of Korea and Romania. However, its authenticity starts to read as artificial and forced appreciation after extensive choreography and lengthy, numerous chase sequences make you feel like you’re on the Universal Studios Backlot Tour. Thankfully, an adaptable camera tightly and dangerously follows speeding cars snaking along a maze-like track in both intense close up and majestic wide angle shots. Director Na knows he can push the boundaries of the lens given cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo’s varied filmography across genres, including their collaboration on horror-thriller The Wailing (2016), previous Cannes Midnight sci-fi screening, Project Silence (2023), and a number of Bong Joon-ho’s environmental dramas. The camerawork is definitely one of the film’s best assets, but seems to be operating on a different wavelength than the actual narrative.
By the time the first monster is neutralized, initial western genre elements have made way to mystery, sci-fi, action, and adventure. Na juggles all of these throughout the rest of the film, including experimenting with comedy quite frequently. Not all of it lands, but you’re bound to find a few laughs somewhere between his digs at Hollywood blockbusters (“Blow that fucker’s face off”), a gory chainsaw autopsy, and bathroom humor involving an extended flashback considerably more revolting than Rat Race’s “prairie dogging it” car ride. What does work is Jung Ho-yeon’s arrival as badass rookie cop Sung-ae, given her universal acclaim and compelling award-winning performance in Squid Game. She is given a similarly central role here, helping prove that women, queens and mothers are the hardworking backbone of any functioning society, human or otherwise.
As other entities arrive (where Na really shows his love for Ridley Scott and James Cameron by answering the million dollar question: how do Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, Taylor Russell, and Cameron Britton fit into all of this?), the narrative descends even further into a bewildering spiral of offputting mayhem. The inconsistent pacing between long, albeit entertaining action sequences and dramatic plot twists, apart from the expectation of a different movie altogether, gives the impression of procrastination instead of effective plot development. The aliens’ own story and inclusion becomes a footnote that can only be explored fully with subsequent installments, a fact that proves itself unfinished but surprisingly one sci-fi fans healthily cheered throughout the screening.
Even after the mid-credit scene you won’t want to miss, Hope is a disappointing excuse unworthy of its elite status. It would have made for a more fitting midnight screening at the more public and audience friendly Toronto International Film Festival in the fall; the extra months also necessary to edit this half-baked idea into a standalone epic it initially promised to be. And to be clear, genre films or monster movies can absolutely be deserving of a Cannes premiere. For example, Bong Joon-ho’s The Host, which premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight section twenty years ago, made sharp critiques on similar themes of class, the environment, politics, and family. Conversely, the final moments in Hope introduce entirely new plot points, playing more like a migraine-inducing Avengers teaser of a whole new universe than a cliffhanger, and are followed by the alien Queen J’aur quoting Hebrew 11:1: “Faith is evidence of what we do not see.” Na has long studied the human connection to faith and the innate need to endure, but faith and hope are the two things unsown in this grand tale of love and survival. Maybe in the next one.
Rating: C-
This review is from the 2026 Cannes Film Festival where Hope had its world premiere In Competition. NEON will release the film theatrically in the U.S.
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