COLD STORAGE
Starring: Joe Keery, Georgina Campbell, Liam Neeson, Lesley Manville, Sosie Bacon, Aaron Heffernan, and Gavin Spokes
Director: Jonny Campbell
PAIGE
Cold Storage is the kind of movie where you just turn your brain off and enjoy the ride. David Koepp’s script is pretty rough at times, and there’s no ignoring some of the horrendous visual effects here, but that’s also kind of part of the movie’s appeal. It may be a bit over the top, but it knows that it is, and everyone involved seems to have understood the assignment. As a pulpy B-movie, even with tons of plot holes, Cold Storage is at least fast-paced and delivers some solid humor.
ROBERT
Cold Storage inspires a movie comparison never uttered in human history and probably never considered again: Evolution meets I Trapped the Devil with a sprinkling of Life. Sometimes, like Black Friday, a one-location horror movie can be dumb fun buoyed by one hero performance; in this case, it is Joe Keery, who is charming as hell and drags this film along by its ears. This isn’t peak straight-man Liam Neeson, as he tries to joke around, but it is close enough. The CG is a little hokey, and some odd tonal choices generate some weirdness with the climax, but the laughs are infectious.
AMARÚ
Just as you forget that Liam Neeson’s voice is more than a vehicle for his next B-movie action thriller, a B-movie horror comedy like Cold Storage gives him a scene to remind you that his monologues carry tons of gravity. He pulled me into what could’ve been just a movie to play in the background. What almost pulled me out is that the stupid person who looked in places they had no business being was Black. All jokes aside, this film straddles the line between interesting and ill-conceived, with actors who retrieve my interest every time the story loses it across that idiotic line.
BODE
The thing to accept about David Koepp and his incredibly versatile career as a screenwriter is that he can miss (Mortdecai, Jurassic World: Rebirth) as often as he hits (Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, Black Bag). But then there’s a film like Cold Storage, which isn’t anyone’s greatest hour, but far from anyone’s worst. It drags a little more than it should (even at 99 minutes), but director Jonny Campbell mostly handles its grotesque B-movie scenario with workmanlike efficiency, never taking the assignment too seriously and allowing his actors to bring the charm as needed. It’s fine for what it is.
