Writer and Director: Duncan Jones
It’s a little bewildering to see British comedy actors such as Diane Morgan and Sarah Hadland in a sci-fi movie, even if it is an animated movie written and directed by David Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones. However, the confusion doesn’t stop there, as Rogue Trooper also features the voices of Reece Shearsmith, Adrian Edmondson and, briefly but crazily, the German comedian so loved by Radio 4, Henning Wehn. The presence of Sean Bean seems quite normal in comparison.
With so many comedians in the mix, you’d expect Jones’s take on the comic strip 2000AD to be funnier, but some of the laughs are quite laboured, no more so than from Shearsmith as Bagman, the Genetic Infantryman who has been uploaded into a rucksack. New Zealand comedian Jermaine Clement and the UK’s Matt Berry play a pair of salvage hunters like something out of Dickens, with Clement outcamping everyone as the sycophantic Mr Brass. But Jones is better when concentrating on the action aspects of his story.
Aneurin Barnard plays 19, a Genetic Infantryman whose skin is blue to protect him from the poisonous atmosphere on Nu Earth. G. I.s can’t die, as they can be uploaded into chips and downloaded into new bodies. When 19’s fellow soldiers ‘die’ in a mission against the Norts, a Fascist regime on the planet, mostly with German accents, he slips their chips into the items he carries: Shearsmith’s character into a backpack, another into his helmet and another into his gun. 19 and his talkative electronic comrades must find their way to the evacuation spot to be taken back to the Southers’ domain. This is the premise of the cartoon strip first published in 1981.
Rogue Trooper doesn’t always look like an animation; the images, captured on camera, of Bean and Morgan look eerily real. Jones insists that no AI was used in the making of the film. The murky landscape of Nu Earth, with its gargantuan tanks and body-littered battlefields, is impressive, but it never has the jerky, surreal tones of a video game. Jones’s vision is unique. 19, his blueness a thousand miles away from a Smurf, is a vulnerable superhero, glowing through the film like a glimmering haze, and fantastically robotic when his eyes light up with a protective shield. Compared to his wisecracking soldier brothers, Barnard plays it straight.
The action sequences of the G.I.s disabling a giant tank or being stalked by Peter Serafinowicz’s sashaying sniper are tremendously exciting. If only the comedy worked as well. But it feels decidedly British – almost Carry On or The Comic Strip Presents, in a way, if either franchise ever had more money – and should give Hollywood a run for its money. It’s also a little sexy, especially when 19 loses his shirt and has to wander around the planet bare-chested. Towards the end of the film, the gorgeous Venus Bluegenes (Hayley Atwell) makes an appearance and spends her time fighting robots while flirting with one of the G. I. chips.
Jones has created a very strange world, part Star Wars, part The Incredible Hulk, all presented with a smattering of Terry Gilliam. Four years in the making, Rogue Trooper looks phenomenal and could be the perfect partner in a double bill with Mickey 17, the vastly underrated Bong Joon Ho movie, also about soldiers who can’t die. However, Rogue Trooper’s quirkiness may put off a wider audience.
Rogue Trooper is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2026 from 7-18 October.
