Hypnotic review: "Robert Rodriguez takes us on an insubstantial but raucous ride"

The Total Film verdict on Rodriguez's latest film is here

Ben Affleck and Alice Braga in Hypnotic
(Image: © Warner Bros./Ketchup Entertainment)

GamesRadar+ Verdict

Robert Rodr💫iguez takes us on an insubstantial but raucous ride that positively flies by.

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Find out more about our r💯eviews p💙olicy.

You don’t come to a Robert Rodriguez film looking for subtlety. But even by his standards, Hypnotic is a lot

Ben Affleck plays Danny, an archetypal sad detective whose daughter&r🍸squo;s abduction a few years prior remains unsolved. While investigating a chaotic bank robbery that involves stripping women, exploding trucks, and a man leaping off the roof disappearing into thin air, Danny thinks he may have found the key to her kidnapping. 

He discovers the sinister man at the core of the chaos was after a picture of his missing daughter and is a ‘hypnotic’, a kind of government-trained psychic that can make people's percepti🥃on of reality bend to their will.

Rodriguez doesn’t take his foot off the gas for the entire 94-minute run time. There’s an action sequence about every four minutes and a plot twist every 10. In a world where ꦯso many films feel bloated and overextended, the frantic pace is highly 🐠refreshing. 

To be sure, Hypn🌱otic is unlikely to trouble anyone’s all-time list of action-sci-fi thrillers. Still, it is a reminder of just how joyously watchable such genre fare can be - and in many respects, the more ridiculous Hypnotic gets, the more it endears. The earnestness of the performances - from co-ꦑstars Alice Braga and William Fichtner, as well as Affleck - amps up the camp appeal. 

True, there’s a near-criminal underuse of Jackie Earle Haley. But it's impossible to rese꧂nt Rodriguez just going for it, like it’s the good old days when movies like ಞthis reigned supreme at the summer box office. 


Hypnotic is in UK cinemas on 26 May and is in US cinemas now. For more 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming movies, check out our breakdown of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:2023 movie release dates.

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Leila Latif is a freelance journalist, broadcaster, film critic, and self-described "haver of hot takes". She used that power (and years of experience) to cover TV an﷽d film for a wide va๊riety of outlets such as GamesRadar+, Total Film, Little White Lies, The A.V. Club, SFX, BBC Culture, and many more.