After five long years, Jessica Alba makes her triumphant feature film return with Netflix’s Trigger Warning. This is her first role since the ill-advised Killers Anonymous and her first onscreen role since the Bad Boys television spin-off, L.A.’s Finest (which was under the Spectrum Original banner, believe it or not). Yes, a lot has happened during the time Alba entertained the masses.
Yet, why does her triumphant return have to be Trigger Warning instead of Honey 2? Besides being in development hell for four years, this film is straight ripped from the genre that gives stars comebacks nowadays. It used to be horror, and now, the revenge thriller has been all the rage as of late.
The question is, will Alba’s film be the good (Reacher), the bad (think any Liam Neeson film from the past decade or two), or the ugly (Peppermint)?
Netflix’s Trigger Warning Review and Synopsis
The story follows Parker (Alba), who returns to her hometown to bury her late father. His death was deemed an accident, but Parker feels something isn’t right. She approaches an old friend, Jesse, the local sheriff and ex-boyfriend (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’s Mark Weber), who also doesn’t think it was an accident.
His response? She should back off and avoid questions if she knows what’s best for her. After all, who is this woman to question the men in power, like the respected Senator Swann (a typically over-the-top Anthony Michael Hall)? Well, how about a Special Forces commando? Because that’s who Parker is, and she’s about to exert some pent-up aggression to seek revenge for her father’s death.
No matter where the answers lead.
Trigger Warning is a Lazy, Updated Retread
Trigger Warning is from director Mouly Surya (What They Don’t Talk About When They Talk About Love), who works with a script from writers with impressive pedigrees. These include John Brancato (The Game) and Josh Olson (A History of Violence), with Halley Gross (Banshee) brought in later to rewrite the script. Jessica Alba still has a knack for hand-to-hand combat and kick-ass thrills.
Surya, an Indonesian filmmaker making her English language debut, brings unique knife fighting skills specific to her home country. The action is well choreographed, utilizing the fighting style of Pencak Silat and incorporating a relentless precision and lightning-fast pace. However, the script is another story. I presume that Gross was brought in to rewrite a script through some type of post-social justice/COVID-19 lens.
Yet, you don’t see much difference from any Rambo-style retread like Walking Tall, The Marine, or Homefront (or any 90s Steven Seagal film, for that matter). There are a few blatantly bigoted references, like debating the merits of “Latinx. but besides updating terminology, the racist undertones remain.
Is Netflix’s Trigger Warning Worth Watching?
Netflix’s Trigger Warning is a movie or script you could find from any Hollywood decade since the 1980s, except now updated with politically correct terminology. The bad guys (why aren’t there any bad women in the film?) are offensively dumb, yet they mastermind a plan most could never pull off by stealing weapons from an Army depot.
Trigger Warning features an exceptional amount of bad dialogue and jokes (“Elvis has left the building”), patronizing exposition (does Alba’s character need to yell out the name of her family’s bar burning to the ground when we can see it?), and stagnant character interactions that are cringe-worthy (Gabriel Basso’s Mike and Alba’s Parker have never made a hug more awkward).
Jessica Alba’s comeback film is so poorly acted and written that it brings new meaning to terms such as overused tropes and clichés. The movie isn’t even a self-caricature, exaggerating the genre because it’s too lazy to live up to the “so bad it’s good” standard of films like this. If this was Alba’s hope for a franchise comeback, let Trigger Warning be a cautionary tale.
You can stream the Jessica Alba film Trigger Warning only on Netflix.
3/10
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