Code 8 (2019) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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It’s time for the Ocho!

Code 8 is part superhero film and part science-fiction story. Except in this story, the people with powers aren’t necessarily the heroes. They’ve been marginalized by society and forced into oftentimes undesirable jobs because of what they can do. Plus, it stars two of the hottest cousins from the small screen as the leads.

First Impressions

This trailer introduces a world where 8% of the people have some special power. A construction worker watches one of his fellow workmates get captured and shot by the police, who use a special tactical robot to take down powered people. This man decides to work with some criminals, who are specifically looking for powered individuals to rob a bank, because he needs money to help his sick mother. It looks like a film about people who have to compromise their morals in order to just survive. Call a Code 8, this movie’s about to start.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

In the near future, the town of Lincoln City typifies the state of the world. People with special powers have been brought in to help build the city and its infrastructure, but now that the construction is done, they have been tossed aside and made to register their powers. Flying drones and robotic Guardians now comb the streets looking to arrest powered individuals, or worse. Mary Reed (Kari Matchett), mother to Connor (Robbie Amell), is ill and behind on her bills. They are both powered individuals, which makes getting normal jobs a challenge, mostly due to the fear from the public. Connor, who has electric powers, works as a day laborer at construction sites. One day, the site is raided by the police, looking for unregistered powered individuals. They kill another man who tries to run.

Detectives Park (Sung Kang) and Davis (Aaron Abrams) are part of a task force looking to stop the spread of a new and highly addictive drug called psyke. It is produced from the spinal fluid of powered people. Mary loses her job at the local grocery store for not being able to control her powers (due to a tumor growing in her brain), but Connor has a “talk” with the manager and gets her reinstated. One day at the local parking lot where Connor gets hired for work, Garrett (Stephen Amell), a TK, arrives looking for an electric for a job. Garrett works for Marcus Sutcliffe (Greg Bryk), the local head of the crime organization The Trust. Along with Maddy (Laysla De Oliveira), a pyro, and the mute Freddie (Vlad Alexis), a brawn, they steal a load of chemicals, called hydro, used to dilute psyke, allowing less to go further.

Park and Davis are put onto the crime, knowing that The Trust is getting desperate as more psyke is being removed from the streets. They know an electric helped with the latest robbery and tag Connor as a person of interest. Connor is concerned about doing illegal work, but the money that Garrett pays changes his mind and allows him to pay for his mother’s care. Garrett needs his crew to rob a local bank in three days’ time, providing Marcus with the money to pay back The Trust for lost shipments of psyke. Garrett trains with Connor, buffing his powers, so on the night of the robbery, the electric is able to knock out the power to the bank. Things go smoothly until they open the safe and realize that the $500,000 that was supposed to be there had been transferred out earlier that day.

The police arrive with a drone ready to deploy humanoid Guardian police officers, but Connor uses his powers to bring it down. Back at Marcus’s hideout, inside a strip club, Connor prevents Marcus from being killed by Copperhead (Sarah Hoedlmoser), an assassin of The Trust. Injured during the attack, Connor is healed by Nia (Kyla Kane), a healer and the apparent girlfriend of Marcus. Mary has an episode and is admitted to the hospital, while Connor is brought in for questioning by the detectives. Davis wants to plant evidence on the young man, knowing he’s guilty of something, but Park has a little more compassion. Marcus is impressed that Connor didn’t reveal anything to the cops, so he allows Connor, Garrett, and his team to hit a police convoy carrying all the seized psyke and traveling to the incinerator. Connor agrees to help if no cops are killed, and Marcus gives him Nia to help heal his mother.

Nia shares that she is blackmailed by Marcus, who will kill her father unless she works off his debt. The elaborate heist is planned to direct the armored police vans into an area of the city where the drones aren’t allowed to fly, giving them more time. The robbery goes as well as can be expected until another member of The Trust, Rhino (Simon Northwood), a brawn, shoots the cops, Maddy, and injures Freddie. Garrett and Connor escape with the injured Freddie, who dies shortly after. Connor sends word to Park to meet him at a diner. The detective agrees, partially because he is sympathetic to the plight of powered people, having a powered 7-year-old daughter who has difficulty controlling her powers. Connor tips the detective to Marcus’s location, and the cops raid the facility.

During the mayhem at the club, Garrett shoots Marcus, who is unable to get to Nia in time to be healed. Garrett then kills Rhino with the help of Connor. Connor grabs Nia and takes her to the hospital to help his mother. She reveals that each time she heals someone, she takes the injury upon herself. Connor has her start to heal Mary, but then has an attack of conscience and lets her stop, as Mary succumbs to her cancer. Outside the hospital, Connor gives Nia his truck and an apology, letting her go. She visits her father, who is still in prison, reconnecting with him. Garrett gives the stolen psyke to the head of The Trust, taking Marcus’s place. Detectives Park and Davis get awards for their policework, while Connor visits his mother’s grave before planning to turn himself in.

“They brought in these machines not to drive the profit line, they did is to drive us out. Because normal people have always hated us. They just use to do it with a smile on their face.” – Garrett

History in the Making

Code 8 is the most unique science-fiction film featured on Sci-Fi Saturdays. It’s not because it has an especially innovative plot or storyline. And it’s not due to the fact that the visual effects are cutting-edge. It’s unique because of how it came to be a feature film by way of a short film. There are feature-length films that have started as short films, such as Saw and District 9, but these were done by creators with limited means, attempting to make a student film or short film when a larger project was infeasible. Code 8 was created as an extended trailer for a larger film and used as a proof-of-concept to get interested fans to crowdfund the film through Indiegogo. This 10-minute short film was released three years prior in 2016, directed by Jeff Chan, who directed the 2019 feature film, and starring many of the same actors, including Robbie and Steven Amell, Sung Kang, and Aaron Abrams. The project raised well over $3 million, from an initial ask of only $200,000. This outpouring can be attributed to having an intriguing idea, but also the fanbases shared by both the Amells, which helped to reach a wider audience.

Robbie Amell and his cousin, Stephen, were both well-known celebrities in Canadian-produced television series. Robbie had starred in several films, having a breakthrough with The DUFF, as well as being a hot commodity on the television shows The Tomorrow People, The Flash, and the revival season of The X-Files. Robbie followed Code 8 with an interesting sci-fi television series for Amazon Prime called Upload, a show about a dead man whose memory is uploaded into a virtual heaven where they can live forever. Stephen Amell had also worked a bit in film, having his biggest hit with the reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows as Casey Jones in 2016. But his fanbase knows him more as the television version of Oliver Queen in the CW smash Arrow, based on the DC Comics Green Arrow character. Together with Sung Kang, known for his work in the Fast and Furious franchise, along with several notable Canadian character actors, like Aaron Abrams (the TV series Blindspot), Greg Bryk (Ad Astra), and Peter Outerbridge (Mission to Mars), the cast created a strong reason why this film is well-liked.

Genre-fication

Code 8, which is a police code requesting backup on the scene, pulls elements from several types of genre films. It has elements of a near-future dystopia with police-state overtones. The world of Lincoln City features large police drones, scaled up from modern equivalents and equipped to hold passengers in the form of the humanoid robotic Guardians. Unlike The Terminator or District 9, these robots are actors in costumes, but created in an intriguing way. Their single red eye and ominous stance caused them to be featured in the posters and other marketing materials for the film. They’re not ubiquitous in the film, which still has human cops for a lot of the work, but they provide the police force with the necessary muscle to assist in taking down any rogue powered individuals.

The film also includes elements of the superhero genre, but ones that are more grounded in reality, unlike Spider-Man or Superman. Code 8 is more akin to the X-Men franchise, featuring characters who have some mutation that gives them a specific power. Though the film never credits them as superheroes, as the comic book genre does. Here, they are real people trying to earn a living and survive. The aspects of their powers and how they work within the real world are similar to the TV show Heroes or Push (2009), another film about powered individuals surviving in the criminal underworld and facing persecution for their differences. If anything, the powered individuals of Code 8 are linked to migrant workers or some other marginalized group due to the restrictions and enforcement around their status. The characters must register themselves, or face legal actions (or sometimes death).

Code 8 is also a heist and crime film, taking the elements commonly found in that genre and adding it as a major story point. The crime boss has a plan, or multiple plans, to steal something and gets an appropriate crew together. Sometimes there are warm-up heists that work well. But when it comes to the main job, there’s always some monkey wrench that gets thrown into the mix. Here, it’s Marcus having his own men on the job, outside of Garrett and his crew. Rhino and the others have an entirely different objective from Garrett and Connor, who are trying to complete the heist with as little bloodshed as possible. Heist films always end with the bad guys getting their comeuppance, proving that crime doesn’t pay. In Code 8’s world, Garrett pays off his criminal debt, but has the opportunity to move up in the game, while Connor plans to turn himself in and face consequences, two things that are hinted at in the conclusion of the film.

Societal Commentary

Creating stories with powered individuals is a way to explore different aspects of society without singling out any real-world group. They can be stories about racism, classism, or any other kind of marginalization the filmmakers want to discuss. Code 8 uses the powered individuals as a metaphor for migrant labor in the modern world. Lincoln City was built using the powers and abilities of these mutants. As the city grew, it needed cheap labor to build its infrastructure. But once the city was built, it cast these individuals aside, favoring automated labor in drones and robots instead. The powered individuals were forced to register themselves and accept menial and low-paying jobs to survive, even though they had powers that might allow them to fight back under normal circumstances. Connor and his cohort stand in a parking lot each day, awaiting a truck to stop by, looking for day laborers for a job site, much like in any large city. In the real-world, these are often the lower class or immigrant groups who cannot get steady work in any other situation. Both groups are treated as second-class citizens by the average person, like the way Mary is treated by her manager at the grocery store. They are also asked to register themselves and are subjected to persecution by the authorities based on their social status.

The Science in The Fiction

Code 8 doesn’t delve into the powers of individuals too deeply, making them more enigmatic. That said, having superpowers is a fascinating element ot the film, and one that audiences seem to enjoy. There are four main superpowers shown, with several others that get some exposure. Connor’s powers feature prominently as an electric. He can generate electrical arcs from his hands like a suped-up electric eel. His abilities also allow him to focus the charges to create a smaller welding flame from his fingers. After training with Garrett, he masters the ability to create an EMP-like charge, which disables electrical components within a larger radius. Brawns, like Rhino and Freddie, are another power set. They have super strength and, in Rhino’s case, tougher skin, allowing him to shrug off multiple bullets. Garrett is considered a TK, a telekinetic. He can make things move by the power of his mind. Nia is a healer, which allows her to channel some of her energy into another person, curing them of a wound or an illness. Just like John Coffey in The Green Mile, she takes the illness into herself, which limits her overall effectiveness. There’s also pyros (people who produce fire, like Maddy), cryos (individuals with cold powers, like Mary), and readers (people like Marcus, who can look into other minds for details). These are a fun aspect of the film that doesn’t deserve more insight. Audiences are accustomed to these types of powers in characters and don’t need to be told how they really work.

The Final Frontier

The success of Code 8 led to a follow-up sequel that was eventually released on Netflix in 2024. It follows the characters of Connor and Garrett five years later as they continue their lives in Lincoln City. These films are both a good fusion of sci-fi elements, popular superhero franchises, and gritty underworld activity. They are also a great example of popular films getting created outside the standard Hollywood studio system for a reasonable price. Sometimes it feels like the mainstream sci-fi content is either a safe bet with big-name actors or a preexisting franchise being revisited for the Nth time. Sometimes it’s fun to see a passion project from creators who want to do something different from the norm. Code 8 is a success on all fronts.

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