ALARUM (2025)

SYNOPSIS: Academy Award® nominee* Sylvester Stallone, Scott Eastwood, Mike Colter, and Willa Fitzgerald star in this explosive action-thriller about two married spies caught in the crosshairs of an international intelligence network that will stop at nothing to obtain a critical asset. Joe (Eastwood) and Lara (Fitzgerald) are agents living off the grid whose quiet retreat at a winter resort is blown to shreds when members of the old guard suspect the two may have joined an elite team of rogue spies, known as ALARUM.

MOVIE REVIEW:

Alarum stars a bunch of recognisable faces from Scott Eastwood (Fast X) to Willa Fitzgerald (Reacher season 1) to Mike Colter (Luke Cage) to of course, still remains as one of the many famous bankable names in Hollywood, Sylvester Stallone. 


Perhaps as one of the means to pay for his next prestige Patek Philippe, Stallone agrees to star in this “direct-to-video” feature, in a pretty small role as a world-weary, loner agent, Chester.

Since he is not the leading man, Eastwood gets the bulk of the movie playing a retired agent, Joe. You see, Joe has fallen in love with fellow agent Laura (Fitzgerald) and they are enjoying their honeymoon in a remote resort in Poland. Obviously, things happened. Conveniently, a plane has mysteriously crashed near the resort. Two pilots are killed and now the couple is targetted by another rogue agent, Orlin (Colter) who is looking for a missing flash drive.

Alarum has a script that wants to be smarter than the average spy actioner but turns out to be more of a convoluted unexciting mess. The twists and turns are cliche and unnecessary. And most of the backstories and exposition hilariously comes from some desk-bound senior agents in a bunker type confined room.

What is that unknown organization known as Alarum? And what is the deal with DEA? And why is Laura protecting a money launderer? Nobody knows and nobody cares. Anyway, Chester is being assigned to backup Joe in a supposedly anticipated teamup. Yet there’s only more boring banter between the two and more double-crossing and stuff that’s probably there to prolong the runtime.

Thankfully, there are plenty of action and explosive sequences to keep you at least momentarily awake. Unfortunately, the choreography and digital violence are both laughable and a huge turnoff. What happened to the good old days of squib and fake bullets? Even the sound effects seem a bit off at certain junctures.

Except for the tremendous casting, Alarum is a cheap, amateur effort. The whole concept of two agents falling in love and ditching their career has been done million times. But this is the worst of them all because we don’t even see Joe and Laura together onscreen that much. Stallone should buy fewer Patek Philippe and get back to work on Tulsa King. In short, Alarum shouldn’t even be made in the first place.

MOVIE RATING:

Review by Linus Tee