Metacritic reviews

It's not really the showcase Mackie has long deserved, and at any rate, Idris' morally troubled young human is the story's real protagonist; but few fans will be very disappointed as the credits roll.

With a touch of Training Day, a smidgen of Eagle Eye, a dash of Eye in the Sky, a pinch of Ex Machina and an extra generous serving of all the Terminator films, Outside the Wire is losing every available award for originality, yet another Netflix creation born from its algorithmic cauldron, but taken on very basic low-stakes terms, it’s a competent enough January time-filler.

Mackie’s performance, for better and worse, is anything but robotic. He plays more or less the same charismatic wiseacre he usually does, interpreting Leo as a machine that’s every bit as uniquely expressive as is any human being. That injects some welcome levity into what’s generally a flat, dour adventure, directed by Sweden’s Mikael Håfström with little of the old-school verve that he brought to Escape Plan.

Hafstrom’s feature might be fine background noise to fold your laundry to. But there is also a very real danger that the film’s sloppy plotting and watered down set-pieces might also make you so disoriented and frustrated that your socks will end up in mismatched little balls.

Apart from his programming, there’s little that sets Leo apart from your average action hero. And that, of course, is the problem with nearly all of these Netflix movies in the end: They approximate, but seldom surpass, what they’re meant to replace.

It’s entertaining enough, but you wish it had something quirkier, more messily human, more imaginatively drawn outside the lines to it.

Outside the Wire is too long, too impenetrable, and not fun enough to warrant its lofty man vs. machine gimmick. It's fun to watch Anthony Mackie assume the role of a smart, cordial killbot, but the film's occasionally exciting bits of action aren't enough to breathe life into this muddled mess of a story.

The film’s paradoxical obsession with preserving the humanity of warfare is compelling enough to keep things moving even when everything around it feels bland and gray, and the po-faced goofiness of the whole endeavor — emboldened by Mikael Håfström’s (“Escape Plan”) resourceful direction — is consistent in a way that makes you want to focus on the movie’s pulpy extrapolation of Asimovian concepts instead of how it beats them into the ground.

Outside the Wire can charitably be compared to the kind of "B" movies that studios used to churn out, and is best consumed by tempering expectations accordingly. Because unlike its futuristic hero, there's nothing special about it.

The film’s arguments against endless war end up seeming more than a bit disingenuous, especially given how much time it spends glorifying the actions and morality of those who help buoy ongoing American occupation of foreign nations.