Asia Reeves (Zazie Beetz) and her sister Maria (Myha’la) have an abusive father. When things reach a flash point, Asia ends up in jail, and Maria returns to the care of her father. After a decade in prison, Asia is released and finds employment working as a maid in The Virgil, an exclusive high-rise apartment building in New York City. During her first night there, the crazy comes out to play.

Asia is accosted by things that make no literal sense, and she runs headlong into the realms of the supernatural. Thus begins a long battle to fight off these otherworldly beings, rescue her sister from enslavement and escape the confines of her surroundings. That is pretty much the entirety of the storyline, thus the need for the aforementioned heavy lifting.

The set design evokes a video platform game, but a decent amount of imagination is employed in dispatching the numerous bringers of peril. This is delivered in a very tongue-in-cheek manner, and eventually the action becomes somewhat pedestrian. As battles are won, the tension about the outcome diminishes. The saving grace is Zazie Beetz; she is a bona fide badass, and her ultimate fate is worthy of attention.
Rob Hudson
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THEY WILL KILL YOU stars Zazie Beetz, Myha’La, Paterson Joseph, Tom Felton, Heather Graham, and Patricia Arquette.

Directed by Kirill Sokolov and written by Sokolov & Alex Litvak, the film is produced by Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti and Dan Kagan, and executive produced by Russell Ackerman, John Schoenfelder, Carl Hampe, Litvak and Sokolov.

Behind the camera, Sokolov is joined by director of photography Isaac Bauman, production designer Jeremy Reed, editor Luke Doolan, costume designer Neil McClean and visual effects supervisor Marc Smith. The composer is Carlos Rafael Rivera, the music supervisor is Andrea von Foerster and the casting director is Richard Delia.

New Line Cinema and Nocturna present THEY WILL KILL YOU, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, only in cinemas on March 26, 2026.
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Naturally, given the story, the torture porn of The Passion is mostly absent here and in its place is a fictionalised account of a Roman Tribune, Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), and his efforts to locate Jesus’ (Cliff Curtis – makes sense) resurrected personage before he once again inspires Judaeans to reject the good, wholesome Roman way of life endorsed by Prefect Pontius Pilate (Peter Firth).

On the strength of the trailer, Risen looked to be an interesting study on the juxtaposition of faith and reason. Clavius, an unbeliever of all things messianic, has his thoroughly reasonable belief in Roman polytheism shaken as he fails to locate the corpse of the crucified cult figure.

Sadly, the film proves to be unchallenging in almost every respect, preferring to simply follow the established biblical narrative rather than engage in any kind of philosophical discussion. As a result, the film preaches to the converted whilst alienating any atheists (like me) who happen to stumble into the cinema expecting a jolly good piece of sword ‘n’ sandalled existentialist entertainment.

In pure cinematic terms, the film is structurally flawed. From the outset it appears that the film is about Clavius’ search for evidence of Jesus’ demise. Yet when this plot is resolved, the film meanders for a good deal more for the seemingly express purpose of satisfying its target Christian audience and completing Jesus’ scriptural journey towards ascension.

Like The Passion of the Christ before it, Risen is one for the believers only.

Stuart Jamieson
www.risen-movie.com