The Stream: Entirely too long becoming monotonous and silly.

The Big Screen: The fast paced, propulsive and thrilling first hour.

The Final Bill: An entertaining monster movie becomes less thrilling as the minutes tick by.

– Trip Fontaine
Director: Na Hong-jin
Writers: Na Hong-jin
Stars: Hwang Jung-min, Hoyeon, Zo In-sung, Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender,
Genre: Action, Drama, Horror, Thriller, Sci-Fi
Rating: R for strong bloody violent content and language throughout.
Runtime: 2 hours 31 minutes
Production Companies: Forged Films, Plus M Entertainment, Westworld, Neon
Platform: In theaters September 9, 2026
Notable Trailers: Dune: Part 3, Violent Night 2, Victorian Psycho, Fjord, Paper Tiger

Well, Streamers! October is just around the corner, so you know what that means… pumpkin spice lattes! Also, there will be more and more scary movies trickling into the theaters. Hope isn’t necessarily your typical Halloween-time fare, but it has that South Korean monster movie thing going for it. In Hope, as the local police chief of Hope Harbor investigates the deaths of some cattle in the village, he discovers a large creature has attacked and destroyed the town. Meanwhile, a rag tag group hunts the creature in order to find out where it came from and what it wants. When the two parties converge, they do all they can to survive. Exploding bodies, falling skies and lots of running hijinks ensue.

Hope is a mixed bag. If you like monster movies, you may be satisfied with this movie to a point. For the first hour, this movie is completely engaging and relentlessly moving. The pace is so fast you can barely catch your breath. The issue is that the first hour is one long action set piece. Yes, it is riveting, but there comes a point where it is overwhelming. Once there is a special reveal, in my opinion, the movie becomes lame, silly and less engrossing. There’s a bit of a lull between the action sequences, but once they pick up again, it seems endless. The other chase scenes are long, ridiculous, and they become frustrating and monotonous. They just keep going and going and going for nearly 3 hours. The story does not support the runtime.

The other thing that brings Hope down is that the visual effects are not great. The reveal of the creature takes all of the tension out of the movie. The effects are pretty laughable at times. You really can’t take it seriously, and it makes the movie less scary. It was pretty disappointing because the build up to the reveal is so engrossing. Nevertheless, there are intentional humorous moments that work. The characters are pretty entertaining, particularly, Ko Bum-seok, the police chief. That man can run!

For me, the ending is terrible and annoying.

Ultimately, Hope is an interesting movie that starts with an excellent monster movie chase scene, but the rest of the film fails to live up to its first hour. The movie is too long, and the relentless action isn’t as thrilling as it keeps going on and on and on. The visual effects aren’t great and the story fails to be as compelling as it should be. Grab a bowl of popcorn solely for the first hour of the movie and then sneak out if you want.