Code 8 (2019): Inexplicably, 4% of people have "powers": Brawn, Pyro, Cryo, Electric, Telekinetic, Telepath, Healer. You can make a pretty balanced City of Heroes party. But there's no costumed superheroes or supervillains, instead they do construction work, or are just petty criminals. So now the muggles have outlawed powers, and use "Guardians" (shitty human-sized robot Sentinels). I don't buy the premise, but it's no dumber than any other superpowered show, and is far less preachy about it than most.
Unfortunately, it's just a formulaic drug crime drama, Training Day for super-powered gangsters. There's a couple of good powered fights, one really amusing Electric kill, otherwise it barely needs the powers, just drugs. It feels like a failed TV pilot; they actually made a 10-minute short demo movie, that after 3 years of production work got them to this, but it still doesn't go anywhere.
As with most modern films, entirely too much is shot with cyan/orange filters so there's no other colors in deeply dark rooms.
Baby Henry Rollins (Robbie Amell) (character has a name but I don't care) is a stay-at-home good boy who tries to get normal jobs, not use his probably high-level Electric powers like his dead hoodlum father, his mother's sick and losing control of her Cryo powers.
So after a little humiliation day in and out being treated like an illegal immigrant worker, he takes up a life of crime, just to sock it away in his sock drawer, we never get to see Baby Henry Rollins go on a bender, he never has fun, he's just focused on his mom. I really don't like him, he's a sterile plastic homunculus like a Ken doll.
Imitation Walter Goggins (Stephen Amell, cousin to Baby Henry Rollins) is more fun, he's a good ol' boy gangbanger, takes care of his crew. But again we don't see much of his life or anything about him. The other two crew, one mute and one a snickering girl pyro assassin, are even more cyphers.
Their crime boss Imitation Riff Raff (Greg Bryk) is obviously evil and treacherous, keeps a girl Nia around for her power… and for once, she calls out Baby Henry Rollins "You just want me for my power", instead of treating him like a good guy for helping/using her.
Half-Bacon/Korean Cop (Sung Kang) does OK, and there's like 2 minutes of him getting any personality before he resumes reading the cop lines. There's no resolution to either his personal problems or his assertion he's going to bring in Baby Henry Rollins.
I don't like the message. Nothing really changes, the world just gets shittier and shittier, corrupt government, corporations, and mobsters get what they want, and you should just accept death and misery.
Fuck that. These people should rise up and slaughter the muggles in power, and anyone else who gets in the way, make them know fear, and pain, and then die. That'd be a good ending. That's basically the videogame Infamous, which had a lot more character development and personality than this film.
★★★☆☆