The events occurring in a war-torn world made small details like apples being a luxury important to the story. It’s not loaded with ugly looking CGI or other shoddy imagery.

The smartest thing that ARQ does is embrace its limitations rather than try to exceed them. It keeps you on the edge of your seat while watching how Ren plans to outmaneuver the villains each time and how the advantage flipflops between the two sides. Nearly the entire runtime is spent inside of Ren’s house with recurring events resulting in different outcomes. The film is relatively short clocking in at just under 90 minutes which suits the concise nature of the story. At first, some of the lingo is somewhat confusing but comes naturally after awhile. The crazy thing about ARQ is that it balances all of these elements quite well. The explanations and scheming between Ren and Hannah are similar to Back to the Future and Bill and Ted. The time loops immediately feel like the plot of Groundhog Day while the overall tone is more 12 Monkeys. While that’s certainly an odd combination of films, ARQ borrows smartly from all of them. The best way to describe this film is that it’s Groundhog Day meets 12 Monkeys, Back to the Future, and the Bill and Ted series. Ultimately, Ren’s goal becomes to prevent the raiders from killing himself and Hannah and shutting the ARQ down to stop the time loops. Eventually, the other characters catch on to the time loop and the two sides try to outsmart each other. After each time Ren is killed, he reawakens at 6:16 AM and he has another chance to foil the previous events. Numerous scenarios play out as Ren and Hannah attempt to escape from their captors only to be killed off. Although, he is the only one immediately aware of it. The intruders, Father, or Grimm, Brother, and Sonny, played by Grey Powell, Jacob Neayem, and Shaun Benson respectively, demand Ren’s currency, known in this film as “scrips.” An additional raider that broke in, Cuz (Adam Butcher), was killed after he touched a mysterious machine known as the ARQ.Īs the film continues, Ren discovers that the ARQ has caught everyone in a time loop. Along with Ren is his ex-girlfriend, Hannah (Rachael Taylor), who he has a complex history with. He awakes at 6:16 AM only to be restrained by raiders in his home.

With ARQ, the focus is on a young man named Renton, or Ren for short, played by Robbie Amell. Netflix has kept their projects small and story/character driven. They haven’t been pumping out bombastic summer blockbusters or anything like that. What has been so good about their recent venture into features is that they have an independent film vibe. The trend continues with Netflix’s newest addition to their feature length film library, ARQ. It has become a staple to comment on how the online streaming juggernaut is dominating home media at this point but it’s true. Stop me if you’ve heard this before on Cinema Smack: Netflix makes good original programming.

Arq netflix reviews