Spectral Review: Wasted potential

There is very little wrong with Netflix's Spectral. It's a film that references and expands upon a few existing tropes within the science-fiction genre, however, it unfortunately doesn't really take them anywhere, and feels rather keen on reaching its abrupt conclusion.

The film is mostly build-up for what appears to be some strange ghostly beings that are unseen to the naked eye. The ghostly figures have the ability to kill immediately on contact, providing the difficult task of our protagonists to try not to die in the process of escaping and eventually defeating them.

Unfortunately, the interesting plot of these fantasy-like ghosts is met with the not-so-entertaining realism behind their existence: they are simply manufactured. A man-made weapon that is set on destroying all in its path. With the newfound information, which appears rather abruptly itself, the soldiers miraculously have the intelligence and means of weaponry to finally challenge them successfully; this makes the strange ghost-like figures completely lose everything that made them threatening, especially due to how fast these chain of events occur.

With its story so desperate to unravel and disappear with its profits, Spectral is mostly forgettable, with its most interesting parts of taking place within the last few minutes of the film, all while a plethora of interesting science-fiction weapons and costumes appear and make you interested in what it could have been. Sadly, Spectral mostly feels like a short film, stretched out into at least an hour and thirty minutes for no real reason. Its potential sits in the mind of the viewer, who will most likely finish the film and say: 'That could have been a decently television show. Why isn't it one instead?'

In short, like the film, Spectral is worth watching, but only for its all-out creativeness in weaponry and costume design towards the end.