My Review of "Code 8"

Code 8 was released very quietly. It was released in 2019 but I've never heard of it until I noticed it on the Crave movie list. Being a Canadian film doesn't really help its case. It's a shame that a lot of Canadian films don't get as much promotion as they deserve.

This movie is based in a fictional city but there were many familiar looking spots in the city. There was definitely a few scenes that I recognized walking through. In fact I believe my uncle lives on the streets of one of the scenes in this movie. I couldn't mistaken the Toronto street but it was really fun to see that in the movie. Yes it threw me off a little but I like the familiarity.

Basically the premise of the movie is that there are a population of people in the world that have somehow gained superhuman powers. Nobody knows how they received the powers but these super humans are oppressed by normal people because they believe there is danger in super powers. This is true but not everyone is going to use their powers for wrongdoing.

I've seen a movie with a similar premise recently called Freaks. Since I saw that movie not too long ago I was starting to think that this is the common theme for super human movies. They're not super heroes rather they're oppressed people with superhuman abilities. Both these movies are actually quite similar.

They both live in the same world of oppressed super humans but are actually movies about family. I think this is basically how the X-men movies played out so it's not really new territory. Yes we can't treat people poorly because they're different I get it.

In this movie we explore the life of Connor. He's got the gift of electricity. His mother has cancer and is also has superhuman powers. She's losing control of her powers because of her illness. Due to the prejudices towards humans with special abilities they are finding it difficult to find work. Hospital bills are piling up and Connor is becoming desperate to raise money any way he can.

He falls into a group of supers that commit crimes. He's taken under the wing of one of the senior members of the groups named Garrett. Garrett trains Connor to fully utilize his special powers. No one has any idea how powerful Connor really is. Connor's character sort of reminds me of the main character in Chronicle.

The big thing is Connor is trying to uphold his morals. As he gets deeper and deeper into crime, he starts to get concerned with the dark road he's following. There are secrets from his family's past that come into play to lead him to the direction that he ends up.

For the most part this movie works. It's highly entertaining even though some of the special effects are a little underwhelming. With a higher budget this movie would have done well in theaters. I think they had a great concept and story. The only thing that held this movie back was it's budget.

There's a lot of moral questions that come into play later on in the movie. I guess it's the old adage, "With Great power comes great responsibility". That's the common theme with a lot of super power movies. I like super power movies so call me biased. I'm a sucker for this stuff.

I can't call it a superhero movie because there's no real superheroes in this movie and this is starting to become a genre of its own.

Overall, I had a great time and the movie is quite short for today's standards. It was only an hour and a half. An actual decent runtime! I have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. It's good for anyone that likes movies about people with super powers.