The cinema year 2024 is off to a rather sleepy start. In Germany we can look forward to a few highlights from last year, such as Priscilla and Poor Things. Netflix is currently offering a full program. Among them is an expensive blockbuster with an exciting premise: In Lift we experience one Gold robbery at an altitude of 10,000 meters, while the clock is ticking. That sounds like the perfect popcorn cinema.
Netflix spent $100 million on the new action hit from director F. Gary Gray, who most recently starred in franchises such as Fast & Furious and Men in Black. However, the film that recommends him for Lift is different: The Italian Job. The entertaining heist thriller is one of the 2000s films par excellence and is regularly broadcast on television even two decades later.
First Netflix blockbuster of 2024: Lift shamelessly copies what has worked much better with other films
While The Itlian Job isn’t a great film, it does carry the promise of one non-binding and extremely entertaining Blockbusters that you can just tune in to. Exactly the kind of film that often goes through the roof on the Netflix charts. And that’s why Lift was constructed just like The Italy Job and other genre role models, from Ocean’s Eleven to Mission: Impossible.
You can watch the trailer for Lift here:
Lift – Trailer (German) HD
It’s no secret that Netflix models its originals after films that have performed very well in (home) theaters in the past. The best example: Looking for his own Star Wars Netflix resorted to a failed Star Wars pitch from Zack Snyder and now we have the uninspired Rebel Moon. There is now a whole range of these cloned blockbusters on Netflix.
The heist film is one of the first genres that Netflix systematically explored after the success of the hit Spanish series Money Heist, from Red Notice to Lupine to Army of Thieves. Now Lift joins the line and marks it previous low point development. Rarely has a film seemed so shamelessly and unmotivatedly designed based on the findings of a detailed algorithm query as this one.
Lift proves that Netflix turns even the most exciting premise into a completely interchangeable film
The real problem, however, is not that Netflix uses templates. The problem is that Lift can’t populate this template. On paper, the film sounds promising: an experienced genre director gets an above-average budget for a film made by most studios of this size would no longer receive the green light.
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lift
There is also an illustrious ensemble and an exciting mission, the airplane heist: The master thief Cyrus Whitaker (Kevin Hart) is caught and has to make a pact with Interpol agent Abby Gladwell (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). If he succeeds, gold bars worth one half a billion US dollars To steal from a plane that is on the way to a terrorist cell, he and his team (including Vincent D’Onofrio, Billy Magnussen and Úrsula Corberó) don’t have to go to prison.
That sounds like a film I would watch in the cinema without batting an eyelid. And just as quickly, I pressed play on Friday evening when I saw Lift appear on the Netflix homepage. 106 minutes later it was Disappointment even greater. Once again, Netflix had all the ingredients together for a memorable blockbuster. And then this. An extremely generic implementation.
This hurts the most with many Netflix films. The streaming service should actually be a platform that allows things to be done that cannot be implemented in the current studio system. In the end something comes completely interchangeable and even the potential for formulaicness – a potential that should not be underestimated, as many very good genre films show – falls completely by the wayside.
Lift could have been the first Netflix hit of 2024 and now it is almost forgotten
Lift feels incredibly bland and sloppy. An unimaginative imitation of better films. There is a lack of any interest in cinematic storytelling. Here we are moving frighteningly close to the word that I always try to avoid: Content. Lift is another tile for the Netflix interface that just reminds you that you’re stuck watching The Italy Job on TV once a year.
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lift
The amazing thing is: Netflix actually misses its mark with films like Lift. Instead of creating its own The Italy Job, there is now a film that briefly dominates the streaming charts but is soon forgotten. Netflix films with a lasting pop culture footprint are surprisingly rare, considering the resources, talent and opportunities behind the projects. A new lift will be needed next year.
The Italy Job will remain in the memory of the film world for the next decade. Lift, on the other hand, will probably no longer play a role in a few weeks. Of course, not every Netflix film has to be watched straight away Blockbuster monolith à la Barbie and Top Gun: Become Maverick. Even traditional film studios can’t do this. But it’s worrisomely admirable how often Netflix fails in this area.
Lift has been streaming since then January 12, 2024 on Netflix.
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