Rogue Trooper Review: Duncan Jones Delivers a Bold, Irreverent Cyberpunk War Epic

The British comics anthology 2000 AD remains a glaring gap in my reading history, and one I ought to address. Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, and many of the writers who later shaped Vertigo and the darker, adult-facing wing of American comics during the 1980s and 1990s first made their names in its pages. Judge Dredd is 2000 AD’s best-known creation, helped along by two radically different film adaptations. Now another of its characters, Rogue Trooper — created by Gerry Finley-Day and Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons — is making its feature-film debut under director Duncan Jones.

After seeing Rogue Trooper at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, it seems likely that the original comics influenced Jones’ debut feature, the cult sci-fi favorite Moon. Both films follow cloned or genetically engineered people created for hazardous missions in space, treated as expendable tools until they recognize their exploitation. With the help of comic mechanical companions, they turn against the institutions that built and abused them.

But where Moon is an intimate, more lyrical drama, Rogue Trooper aims for a far larger action spectacle, even as an independent production made outside the studio system. Jones’ answer to mounting a comic-book war epic on an indie budget was animation, with Unreal Engine video game graphics software playing a central role in the process. The finished look is certainly unusual, yet the technique has a major advantage: it lets the film’s anti-authoritarian bite and offbeat British humor land without being smoothed over by Hollywood-style homogenization.

Rogue Trooper has a considerable amount of mythology to establish. Following an opening-credits sequence featuring artwork from the original comics, the movie launches into a Star Wars-style crawl explaining the conflict between the Norts and Southers on Nu-Earth. It also introduces the Genetic Infantrymen, engineered to endure the planet’s poisonous atmosphere and equipped with biochips that preserve their brains if their bodies are destroyed. Just as the exposition threatens to overstay its welcome, it closes with a dry aside about the Infantrymen’s fate: “seems a bit unfair, innit.” That line captures the movie’s voice perfectly. Whenever the dense lore starts to overwhelm, the comedy pulls it back into focus.

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The story begins with four Genetic Infantrymen, though a brutal battle soon reduces the unit to one survivor: number 19, voiced by Aneurin Barnard. He is joined by the brain chips of his fallen comrades, housed in his gun, voiced by Jack Lowden — the Slow Horses actor rumored to be the next James Bond — his helmet, voiced by Daryl McCormack, and his backpack, voiced by Reece Shearsmith. Yes, this is an ultraviolent cyberpunk war movie in which a talking backpack is one of the central characters. TIFF’s description notes that the comics influenced Warhammer 40K, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and James Cameron’s Avatar. Maybe Dora the Explorer, too, though that is probably just a case of great minds thinking alike. Beyond the jokes, watching Rogue Trooper as a newcomer can feel like a game of tracing influences. The parallels with Moon are apparent, while its political satire also brought Fallout to mind.

It is also ideal for a round of “name that voice,” given the number of cherished comedians and character actors populating Nu-Earth. Matt Berry and Jemaine Clement turn up as sleazy war profiteers, while Peter Serafinowicz gives Nort sniper Vichy a ridiculous French accent. Sean Bean and Diane Morgan voice 19’s commanders, and Hayley Atwell plays Venus Bluegenes, a rogue superwoman who battles giant mechs and will almost certainly send certain corners of Bluesky into a frenzy. The point is clear: this is a terrific voice cast, and the movie becomes more entertaining as more of its players enter the picture.

The plot of Rogue Trooper grows more compelling as it heads into increasingly strange territory, and the animation itself seemed to improve as the runtime progressed. That may simply reflect getting used to the visual style, or perhaps the later material benefited from the film’s lengthy production cycle. Either way, the action is noticeably stronger in the back half. The first-act fights can feel oddly weightless, dulling their physical impact. By contrast, when 19 faces off against giant mutant babies in a beat-’em-up near the end, every punch has real force.

While the producers have said they didn’t want the movie to be too video game-like, the fact of the matter is the animation does look like a video game. This sort of realistic-ish, mo-cap-enhanced animation rendered in this budget-friendly way inevitably looks like a game. The regular human characters are caricatured in a way that dodges strict realism and evokes the comic book, though textured in a way that still has one foot in the uncanny valley.

“Rogue Trooper” is a film made for a specific audience: people who enjoy a pretty good comedy episode of “Love Death + Robots.” Not as mind-blowing as the best “Love Death + Robots” episodes, not as facile as the worst — just a solid bit of digitally animated cyberpunk action with a bunch of wacky jokes, a bit of heart (stick through the end credits for the director’s dedication to the people of Ukraine), and enough over-the-top brutal deaths to make the Midnight Madness audience applaud. It’s not transcendent, but if you like the type of thing it’s doing, you will like this movie. I like this type of thing, and I might just want to check out some of those comics now.

“Rogue Trooper” premiered at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Looper screened it at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. Release plans have yet to be announced.