“I feel intellectually violated” – the 7 most offensively stupid moments in Stallone’s Mission Alarum

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Mission Alarum (known simply as Alarum outside the UK) debuted on Prime Video this week and seems to have drawn a large audience. Many people tuned in – enough for it to become the platform’s most-watched title. However, viewers haven’t been impressed: as we previously reported, the film has remarkably received a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

So, is it so bad it’s actually good? It features Sylvester Stallone, who’s been in many fantastic movies, and Scott Eastwood – whose father, Clint, also has a long list of great films under his belt! Plus, Willa Fitzgerald was in Strange Darling, which was genuinely a really good film.

Mission Alarum, alas, is not so bad it’s good.

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Here’s what people are saying about it: “Oh boy, this is a disaster,” “Don’t bother with it, even if you’re really bored,” and – our top pick – “I feel intellectually violated.”

So we got stuck in ourselves to see if it was as bad as they said. Here’s what we found:

Literally the opening scene

Scott EastWood, surprisingly dressed in a tuxedo (the reason remains a mystery), is suddenly shot through a window. He falls, wounded and bleeding. Shortly after, someone forces their way inside, but unexpectedly, the injured Eastwood fights back, overpowering and quickly defeating the attacker.

But hold on, there’s yet another person involved, and it’s a woman! The two of them engaged in a violent fight before accidentally falling through a window and crashing onto a car parked two floors down. Surprisingly, they then start flirting, as apparently a broken nose and a gunshot wound are considered attractive.

And also the guns

It’s become increasingly common for movies to use prop guns and have actors pretend to fire, rather than using blanks – often for budgetary reasons. However, if a production chooses to go this route, it’s crucial that the visual effects are convincing. A shotgun blast should *look* like a shotgun, and not just a bright flash with a little wisp of smoke added on top.

And also the tech

Willa Fitzgerald’s character uses a hidden communication device inside her hairdryer. The message appears slowly, one character at a time, as if Wi-Fi doesn’t exist, and the font looks like it’s from a retro-Matrix-style cyberpunk movie made in 1995. It’s quite a futuristic effect!

If the reason given for using this pointless device over a smartphone is that it requires encryption and secrecy, and so on, we would draw the jury’s attention to exhibit A: WhatsApp. Even government officials use it now.

And also the plot

After 15 minutes, we were still completely unsure about the main characters – we didn’t know who they were, how they were connected, who their employer was, or what their goals were. We had no understanding of their motivations or relationships to each other.

The disregard of basic physics

Okay, so I was totally shocked by the opening scene! Someone shoots the pilot and co-pilot of this tiny plane, and we *see* it happen – it’s shown from the gun’s point of view, you know, bang, with blood everywhere in the cockpit. But here’s the weird thing: even though there’s a ton of blood spraying forward, the bullets don’t actually seem to *go* anywhere. The glass in the cockpit doesn’t even crack! It’s like… the bullets are staying *inside* their heads, which is just… unsettling. Seriously weird.

Misunderstanding weather

As the plane explodes just out of view, a character hears the sound, which resembles thunder. “Is that hail?” she asks, seemingly mistaking one type of weather for another.

It gets worse

Walking through the forest, the group eventually finds the crashed plane. The disoriented woman stares for a moment at the broken propellers, wings, and body of the aircraft, which is just a few feet away, and asks the somewhat unnecessary question: “What is it?”

So, that covered the first 20 minutes. We’re going to stop here, as time is limited. We still haven’t met Sly Stallone, discovered the film’s plot, understood anyone’s motivations, or figured out why it’s called Mission Alarum. We’ll leave it to others to uncover those details.

Mission Alarum is available to stream on Prime Video.

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2025-10-02 00:20