A young man left his posh Kingwood enclave recently and hopped on board a pontoon boot crossing a Georgia lake for The New Redneck Island, joining 23 other rowdy contestants for the reality TV show now airing at 9 p.m. Thursdays on CMT.
Hunter Larsen, a 2009 graduate of Kingwood High School, is one of the 12 guys and 12 gals fighting it out in various competitions — including mud-pit fights — for the grand cash prize of $100,000 to be awarded at the end of the season. In the premiere earlier this month, these muscle-bound, bikini-wearing Southerners dove right into the raucous action with beer bong chugging and language frequently bleeped.
Larsen, who told Your Houston News he doesn't consider himself a "redneck" but does enjoy being an outdoor-loving guy, landed the gig after interviewing via Skype. That led to a trip to Georgia for a personal introduction and then it was on with the show.
These muscle-bound, bikini-wearing Southerners dove right into the raucous action.
In its fourth season, The New Redneck Island is hosted by wrestling icon "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and Jessie James Decker, a country pop singer/songwriter. The contestants pair up as teammates — and as bunkmates — in a Georgia lake house.
By the way, Larsen also describes himself as very competitive, so using the words of Austin, "If you want Larsen to open a can of whoop ass, gimme a Hell Yeah!"
The most important thing for any movie to establish early on is its tone. No matter the genre, a film needs to make its audience understand how they should feel as the story unfolds so that they’re willing to go along with whatever transpires on screen. A film that doesn't do that, such as the new Onslaught, runs the risk of failing to connect with viewers even if it has some interesting or fun elements to offer.
One of the biggest issues for the movie is that it fails to fully invest in its main character, Celeste (Adriana Arjona). She’s a military veteran who now lives in and manages a desert trailer park, which is filled with a motley crew of offbeat people. She also has a contentious relationship with her ex, who unexpectedly drops off their daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy), soon after the film begins.
Celeste has a stash of high-powered weapons, showing she hasn’t left her former career fully behind. Her expertise comes in handy when something goes wrong at a nearby military contractor facility run by Hans Kemmler (Dan Stevens), and a trio of super soldiers escapes into the wild. Trained to kill everyone in their path, it’s not long before they set their glowing eyes on the trailer park.
Directed by Adam Wingard and written by Simon Barrett, the film has elements of horror, action, and comedy, but the filmmakers struggle in finding the right combination of the three. Wingard and Barrett divide the film’s focus between the trailer park and the military facility for a long time at the beginning of the film, and the quirkiness of people at the former mixed with the bold weirdness of the people at the latter keep viewers off balance in a bad way.
Once they finally settle into the main part of the story where the super soldiers go on a rampage, the filmmakers overpromise and underdeliver. The showdown between a seemingly unstoppable group and an angry woman and her band of misfits seems destined to be highly entertaining, but comes off as underwhelming. The sequence is filled with brutality with no meaning and heroics that feel more accidental than purposeful.
The ham-fisted way in which the story plays out is disappointing since the film has a bunch of characters who could have been great if used properly. The trauma of Celeste’s military career and personal life are hinted at, but don’t come into play as much as expected. Hans and his wife Hanna (Rebecca Hall) are completely off-the-wall, but their eccentricities seem to be apropos of nothing. The super soldiers are initially intimidating, but the climactic sequence undercuts them significantly.
Arjona has yet to fully break out despite some good roles in Hit Man and the Disney+ show Andor. She makes for a good lead here, embodying the toughness of a military veteran while still being relatable. Stevens and Hall go all in with their bonkers characters, but the story doesn’t serve them well. Comic relief comes in the form of Reginald VelJohnson and Eric Wareheim, and they do a great job in smaller roles.
A movie like Onslaught is typically one where the audience just turns off their brains and enjoys the carnage. But Wingard and Barrett try a little too hard by throwing in oddball characters that don’t add much to the story, forgetting to pay enough attention to the mechanics of the plot in the process.
