'Rogue Trooper' Review: A Rough-Edged Sci-Fi Adventure with Plenty of Personality
By Rogue Trooper - October 18, 2026
Duncan Jones’ long-gestating passion project, adapting the 2000 AD comic series Rogue Trooper to the big screen. I am not familiar with the comic series of the Trooper of Rogue at all, but I was very interested in this adaptation from Duncan Jones, made entirely within the video-game graphics engine Unreal. Jones himself has been a peculiar director, launching onto the scene with Moon back in 2009, then the solid follow-up Source Code, followed by a series of high-profile misfires that left you wondering what happened to the bloke who made those first two.
As someone who knows nothing about the source material, this was a bit of a jarring experience at first. Things open by throwing an absolute ton at the audience in the first twenty or so minutes. I got genuinely worried it was going to be one of those grimdark, edgy sci-fi actioneers, almost like Space Marines via Zack Snyder, all gritted teeth and self-serious blue people shooting each other in the rain. Thankfully, as things pick up the comedy gets wackier, the situations get weirder, and the anti-military satire does set in. What emerges is a fun but uneven animated spectacle that takes a while to find its footing.
What is Rogue Tropper about?
The plot, once it settles, follows Rogue, a genetically engineered blue-skinned super-soldier and the sole survivor of his regiment, as he wanders the toxic, war-ravaged wasteland of Nu-Earth. His dead comrades live on as biochips inserted into his equipment: a sarcastic gun, a pragmatic helmet and a frequently malfunctioning backpack, turning him into a walking argument between four personalities. What starts as a revenge mission against the officers who betrayed his unit gradually expands into a broader, more absurd journey through the endless, pointless conflict, complete with sleazy scavengers, giant mechs, hallucinogenic gas and a healthy dose of anti-military bitterness.
One of the most consistently enjoyable elements is the star-studded British voice cast, which brings bags of distinctive personality and energy. Aneurin Barnard’s laconic, Welsh-inflected performance as the blue-skinned Rogue Trooper holds the story with actual likability amid all the messiness. The banter among the biochip characters: Jack Lowden’s Gun, Daryl McCormack’s helmet, and Reece Shearsmith’s often-malfunctioning backpack, provides constant comic relief and weirdly effective emotional through-lines. There’s something surprisingly joyful about a man having full conversations with his own equipment.
Supporting turns from Hayley Atwell (as the mech-fighting Venus Bluegenes), Sean Bean, Matt Berry and Jemaine Clement (as a pair of sleazy war-profiteer scavengers, who are the clear scene-stealers), Diane Morgan, Peter Serafinowicz (as an outrageously flamboyant and egotistical French-accented sniper), Alice Lowe, Asa Butterfield and others create an absolute embarrassment of talent. The regional accents, the improvisational flair from the comedians, and the overall delivery of the sharply written dialogue give the film a lively, character-driven thread that ends up more engaging than the sci-fi spectacle. You find yourself investing in a talking backpack, which is not a sentence I expected to write this year.
The animation and world-building also deserve real credit. Produced independently on a modest budget using Unreal Engine 5 (with an emphatic on-screen note that no AI was involved, only human talent over years of work, a lovely middle finger to the current climate), the film delivers photorealist yet stylised visuals. The toxic, war-ravaged landscapes of Nu-Earth, the gargantuan tanks, the body-strewn battlefields and the cosmic backdrops all have impressive scale. On a big screen the world-building can feel almost overwhelming. Facial animations, environmental details and the later action sequences gain more visceral impact as the film goes on. While the video-game-like sheen takes some adjustment, it allows for hyper-violent, inventive set pieces involving spaceship-crunching battles, stealth sequences amid hallucinogenic gas, over-the-top brutal deaths that feel true to the 2000’s pulp energy without the usual Hollywood homogenisation. Comic-book-style description boxes and panels in the banger opening titles further underline the affection for the source material.
The most pleasant surprise is the distinctively British tone and wit. The film blends pitch-black, bracingly sarcastic, irreverent comedy with regional insults, quirky absurdity and anti-authoritarian satire that takes aim at the cynical economic drivers of endless, pointless wars. It completely avoids sincerity in favour of a tongue-in-cheek sensibility rooted in 2000 AD’s acerbic, punk spirit. There are needle-drops of 1980s and 1990s classics alongside Edith Piaf tracks that somehow fit the eccentric atmosphere perfectly. The story grows more interesting and fun as it branches into weirder directions, and the interplay between Rogue and his chip-bound comrades provides both heart and laughs alongside the violence. It’s appealingly irreverent and audacious, the sort of passion project that feels made without cynicism and could easily become a cult or midnight-movie staple.
The animation and visual style do come with some significant issues. The Unreal Engine 5-rendered, motion-capture-enhanced look frequently resembles high-end video-game cutscenes (think Gears of War or Cyberpunk 2077). It has a glossy, slightly clammy quality that many will find off-putting. The hyper-real character designs with faces closely modelled on the voice actors can land deep in the uncanny valley. Faces often look unsettling, damp-putty textured, grotesquely exaggerated or just plain creepy. The style takes significant getting used to, can feel aggressively synthetic or murky, and occasionally shows rough technical edges or inconsistency thanks to the independent budget.
The action sequences are a mixed bag and often falter. Early fight scenes suffer from a repetitious loop that destroys any visceral impact. Some of the combat becomes what feels like endless head-stabbing and knife-play, and the plentiful action early-on lacks enough variety to avoid repetition and eventual tedium. Certain sequences feel more like watching a livestream of an Xbox 360-era shooter (complete with frequent scope-aiming shots) than actual cinematic set pieces, while the animation sometimes struggles to keep pace with the ultra-violent ambition. Like every other aspect of the film, things do get much more creative and varied in the latter half.
Narratively and structurally there are clear weaknesses. The first act contains lengthy exposition dumps that play exactly like interminable video-game cutscenes. The core plot remains relatively thin and confined to a limited number of settings. At around two hours the film feels bloated and can drag significantly in the back half. It has an episodic quality that might have suited a series better, and the satirical edge of imperialism, bureaucracy and the military-industrial complex, is often diluted in favour of a more conventional hero’s journey.
Rogue Trooper is a fun but uneven Unreal Engine passion project that takes a while to find its feet, eventually landing as an irreverent, distinctly British sci-fi action-comedy with a fantastic voice cast, impressive (if clammy) world-building and a healthy dose of anti-military satire. The uncanny-valley visuals, repetitive action, lengthy exposition and slightly bloated runtime stop it from fully firing on all cylinders, but there’s enough niche energy and genuine affection for the source material to make Rogue Trooper a potential cult-favourite. I'd love to see a sequel.
'Rogue Trooper' had its UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival - More release details coming soon.
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Dan Bremner
Writer
Dan is a writer from Guildford with a love for all things genre, schlocky, and thoroughly '80s, and a part-time philanthropist.
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