I had the lowest expectations for Captive State. Alien insects in the near future subjugating earthlings and prompting a rebellion of ragtag misfits forced to band together to save humankind isn’t much of a selling point in my book. But it’s set in Chicago, so I had to go. I went in hoping for a dumb disaster flick with some cool location shots. What I got was a sly, impassioned rant about gentrification and authoritarianism, thinly disguised as a grimy B-movie. But the best thing about this surprisingly powerful film is how it uses the city of Chicago.
The idea of an American government ceding control to a foreign entity doesn’t take much of an imaginative leap at this point. The hideous insects controlling the country mostly remain in the shadows, making them that much more sinister, but their aims and methods will be familiar to anyone living in 2019. They’re here to plunder all of the planet’s resources. Their motive is basically greed. News reports are full of pro-government disinformation, and several characters work in a facility devoted to collecting and wiping data off cell phones; this is hardly science fiction.
