Genre: Action/Sci-Fi
Director: Tim Miller
Writer: H.G. Hansen
Based on the video game
Cast: Sebastian Stan, Mark Strong, Tom Hanks, Denis O'Hare, Franka Potente, Michael Stuhlbarg, Brooklynn Prince
Plot: In 1960, Jack (Sebastian Stan), is a passenger on a plane. He seems contained to himself as the pilot tries to make small talk. Jack ignores him by reaching into his bag and pulls out a package. In the package contains an earpiece connected to a shockwave and a note saying, “Your answer lie in the ruined city of Rapture.” Jack looks at the note as he hears from the pilot. “Where you think you should be heading…” Suddenly, static is heard from the radio. He hears something and then blacks out.
Jack wakes up deep under water as he sees luggage and plane parts sink down. The plane has gone down in the Atlantic Ocean. As the only survivor, Jack tries to make his way to a nearby lighthouse before the flame on the ocean completely surrounds him. He walks into the lighthouse and lights suddenly turn on to see Andrew Ryan with a banner under him saying “No Gods or Kings, Only Man”. Jack is confused by this as he begins to walk all the way to the bottom level.
Jack arrives into an elevator and pulls a lever. He sees some kind of lights on the side of the tunnel. Suddenly, the window closes and a projection video begins to play. Andrew Ryan (Tom Hanks) narrates about how freedom is restricted by religion or government He rejects their no’s and he chose to face the impossible. He chose Rapture and the screen opens up to show the underwater city called Rapture. Ryan continues how Rapture is a place to no longer fear censors, science will never be bound by petty morality, and where the greats wouldn’t be constrained by the small. With the sweat of your brow, Rapture could be your own home as well.
The elevator now turns into a vessel that swims past some statues and under a bridge where the lights flicker. But Jack kinda sees some big person standing in it. He tries to take a closer look as the vessel goes by but hears a scary roar that startles him. He now can hear some noise from his radio like someone has noticed the plane crash. He gets distracted by the bright neon signs and the giant whales that look to be carrying supplies. He now heads to an entrance tunnel where words on the rails say “All Good Things… Of This Earth… Flow… In The City…” Jack mutters. The vessel floats upward to a platform.
He sees nothing as it’s too dark but he hears someone beg for their life. Jack leans onto the glass and wonders what’s going on. The lights begin to flicker as he sees someone attack the guy digging some kind of hooks into him. Jack is shocked by this and tries to step back but it’s too late as whatever attacked sees him. “Is this someone new?” said in a creepy female voice and then a banshee roar is heard. She climbs onto the vessel as the lights stop. He looks around trying to wrap his head around what he just saw. Suddenly, metal can be heard getting scrapped and clawed at. The woman screams as she tries to get in. A loud noise is heard which makes her scream louder and run off.
Jack is scared out of his mind as the door now opens and someone on his radio communicates with him. Jack tries to ask questions but the man tells there’s no time. He tells him his name is Atlas (Mark Strong) and wants to guide him to safety from the splicer he just saw. Jack doesn’t understand but Atlas tells if he doesn’t move to higher ground, he’s good as dead. He asks how he sees him as he sees a helicopter robot watching him. Atlas has many of them around the city.
He guides Jack along the building as he can hear the female splicer whisper how she’d like to murder him in gruesome ways. Jack is afraid as he listens to Atlas’s instructions, tells him to keep walking and get her out of hiding. Suddenly, the splicer jumps in front of him and Jack is mortified by what he sees. This “splicer” looks like she is badly disfigured with heated hooks attached to her arms. She screams before going to attack him. Not before a defense robot swings in to showers bullets in her direction. She runs away trying to avoid the robot. Jack is stunned but Atlas snaps him back telling him to find a crowbar or something. Jack looks and finds a wrench on the ground. Atlas tells him to crush the rumble blocking the way that was made by the Splicers to keep whoever in. Jack finally clears it and crawls inside. He runs up the stairs till he sees a flaming couch fly at him. He dodges up it. He laughs till someone else attacks him with a pipe. Jack gets hit but fights the guy off till he puts dent into the guy’s head. The guy goes limp leaving Jack breathing hard.
He doesn’t waste time as he goes to head to the door which is broken by the Splicers. Atlas tells him not to worry and head upstairs and take something from Gather’s Garden. Jack is confused but heads upstairs to find a vending machine with some red vials. Atlas tells him to take one but Jack is hesitant. He takes one, looks at it, and then injects himself with it. Suddenly, he’s shaking as his veins can be seen lighting up. He groans in pain as his entire body begins to light up. Atlas tries to calm him down as his genetic code is being rewritten. Electricity begins to shoots off him as he almost becomes unstable. He loses control, falls over the edge and lands hard onto the floor.
Jack wakes up to find out what he took was a plasmid, a Gene Tonic which gave him control of electricity. Atlas is glad he’s okay and tells him to use his new powers to open the door. He opens the door to a bridge as everything is okay till a bang is heard afar. Jack looks around to see a submarine begin to fly into the bridge. Water begins to quickly rush in and Jack rushes to get out of there. He gets through the sub and on the other side. Now the water begins to make the whole bridge unstable as more leaks break through. Jack rushes to the end before the bridge is completely filled with water.
He’s safe but only for a minute as other Splicers begin to attack. He fights them off with his wrench and powers as the door leading the way out slowly opens. Atlas tells him to take their plasmids as it’s dangerous to overuse his powers. He grabs their plasmids and walks up to a calm room till a flaming elevator drops down. Jack walks up to door but an on-fire splicer pops out to attack. Jack makes quick work as he rushes to find a working elevator. He finds out and heads up.
As he goes up, Atlas requests Jack's help in stopping Ryan, directing him to a docked bathysphere, called Neptune’s Bounty, where he claims Ryan has trapped his family. Jack doesn’t know if he can. He was looking for this place but had no idea why or how dangerous it was. Atlas urges him and argues if Jack had a family, wouldn’t he do everything in his power to save them. Jack sighs as he remembers the last words his mom and dad told him before his trip. He agrees to help him if he can help him get out of here.
The elevator stops and he asks what the hell everyone’s deal is. Atlas tells him plasmids changed everything. It destroyed people’s bodies and minds as people couldn’t handle it. Best friend butchered one another, babies strangled, and then the whole city went to hell. He walks into the Kashmir Restaurant as he looks around for any company. He goes downstairs slowly as he sees a splicer knock on a door manically. Jack tries to head down the stairs till he accidently steps on glass. The splicer attacks as they break through the rails and lands on the floor. A piece of wood goes through the guy’s head. Jack tries to get up by the guy’s lady friend quickly attacks him. Jack struggles to kill till he puts the pistol in her mouth. Jack breathes heavily as he sees some kind of recording on her. He plays it on the shockwave radio and it’s a recording of a girl along on New Year’s Eve talking about how foolish it was to fall in love with Andrew Ryan then an explosion happens. She says she’s bleeding till another explosion cuts it off. Jack is beside himself as he looks around to see dead bodies, blood, and destruction everywhere.
He finds a way out as it leads to the skylight over a theater. He walks across but sees a little girl (Brooklynn Prince) on the stage. He puts his weapon away and walks across to get a better look. He then sees she’s injecting a dead guy’s flesh. Jack whisper what the hell is he seeing. He tells him that’s a Little Sister. Someone turned a bunch of orphaned girls into monsters. They carry something called ADAM, allows its user to alter their DNA to grant them super-human powers like telekinesis or pryokinesis. Jack asks why but his answer comes when a splicer tries to attack the Little Sister. She cries for help and suddenly a monstrous roar Jack heard from earlier is heard. The monster he saw from earlier jumps down and viciously attacks the guy with its huge drills sending blood everywhere. Jack watches in horror as the beast smashes the guy’s head into the glass infront of him. It continues till he goes through the glass. “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!” Atlas tells him that’s the Big Daddy, a plasmid-enhanced human surgically grafted into giant lumbering diving suits. She collects ADAM and he keeps her safe. Jack waits till their gone to remove the guy and walk through the glass.
He gets to Neptune’s Bounty but the door shuts on him and an alert is sounded. Jack asks what’s going on as it turns out Andrew Ryan knows they’re there and set off the alarms. Jack can hear a door slamming open as Atlas tells him to run for Splicers are on their way. Jack runs down a hallway shooting at the gang of Splicers. Jack asks where to go and Atlas tells him to take the elevator at the end. Jack runs out of bullets and heads inside. But it turns out to be a trap as Atlas’s signal breaks off and the room goes dark.
A message starts to begin inside as Andrew Ryan appears. He asks if Jack is CIA or KGB or just some asshole trying to plunder Rapture. Jack defends himself by saying he’s not a spy, he just is in the wrong place, wrong time. Andrew doesn’t believe him as he then tells him he’s not some socialite who likes being slapped around and bids him farewell or Dasvadinya. Whatever he prefers. Suddenly, the gang of Splicers reappears and starts to break through the glass. It turns out he’s not in an elevator but a killing room. Jack knows he won’t be able to fight his way out as there are too many. They get close to breaking through till Atlas comes back and opens one of the doors. Jack runs out and the door closes just in time.
He thanks Atlas but Atlas stays on the task at hand. He tells Jack he needs to head to an emergency access. Jack stops though cause he wants answers about who the hell is Andrew Ryan. He tells him he’s the King of Rapture and GD maniac. He doesn’t even believe he’s human anymore. Jack is worried but Atlas assures him by telling him the sooner this is over, the sooner he’s out. Jack agrees and keeps going.
He gets to the emergency access panel but access was denied. “What now?” Atlas tells him they need Dr. Steinman’s key to access it. But he warns Jack, the doctor is more monster than human nowadays. Jack finds two recording and plays one recording of how Ryan and Frank released him from restrictions and how he can finally be free. Then the other is the woman from before talking about how Steinman is gonna make her pretty.
Jack shakes his head as Atlas asks if he’s okay. He ignores him and opens a door. Atlas tells him to follow the blood. He walks into only find Steinman set up machine gun defense robots. Jack dodges them but then finds some Splicers there as well. Jack fights off both as the dust settles. Jack finds more recording in a room looking for Steinman. The recordings get darker than the last as Steinman (Michael Stuhlbarg) uses ADAM and his surgical skills to redefine himself. Suddenly, Ryan announces how a fly is spoiling their ointment and offers one thousand ADAM to whoever can clip its wings.
Jack can’t believe what’s he hearing as he can’t believe would act this way. Atlas disagrees as everything from the security and the Splicers to the little sisters and the big daddies all leads to Ryan. He pumps some chemical scent into the air, pheromones they call it, makes them all dance to his tune. Jack is beside himself by all this but has no time as he has to hurry to the doctor’s office as he can heard the hordes of splicer running to his direction. Jack enters the office and puts a steel pipe in the handles and a desk in front of it. He then sees a photo of someone disfigured as he finds a recording under it. Steinman compares himself to Picasso how he got bored with painting people and started with cubes. He then thinks what if he could do the same as him but with a scalpel.
Jack heads over to the end of the hall as he sees a man doing surgery on a poor lady. Dr. Steinman freaks out by how the lady doesn’t stand still. He raves about making people beautiful but they always turn out wrong. He then shines a light three failed procedures on blood smeared crosses. By seeing this, Jack vomits by the sight of it. Steinman hears this and sees Jack, who to the doc is ugly. This upsets him beyond his edge and grabs a tommygun and begins firing. Jack dives out of the way. Jack uses his lighting to open the door to try and sneak behind the doctor but he sees him coming and fires again.
They chase and gun fight down to the lower almost downed basement. Steinman raves about how he’ll make Rapture beautiful again and everyone sees how he’s a genius. But while he rants, the gun jams and Jack doesn’t waste time to shot him in the chest. Steinman drops to his knees and while looking Jack mumbles about how he was gonna make everyone free. Jack watches as the doctor’s blood filled the water. Atlas doesn’t seem to care as he tells him to grab the key from him and get going. Jack stares at him for a little longer and asks himself how the craziness of life finds a way.
Jack gets the emergency access working and walks into another almost collapsing tunnel. He gets hallway till he hears a bang. He walks to the left hallway and sees a Big Daddy fly in flames. Jack encounters a wandering Little Sister. Atlas urges Jack to kill the Little Sister to harvest her ADAM for himself; Dr. Tenenbaum (Franka Potente) overhears this and intercepts Jack before he harms the Little Sister, urging him to spare the child and any other Little Sisters he encounters, providing him with a plasmid that would force the sea slug out of her body. Atlas laughs by how sermon this is coming from the woman who made that girl that way. He tries to convince Jack but Jack tells him to shut up. Jack refuses as he doesn’t want to be a monster like the Splicers and this damn city. The Little Sister tries to crawl away but Jack tells it will be alright and frees her from her enslavement. Atlas thinks he’s a fool for that but Jack doesn’t care.
Jack walks into Neptune’s Body as he sees a man strung up like a scarecrow who cuts to shreds with the word “smuggler” written in blood. Jack asks how does it come to this and Atlas is quick to blame Ryan. Ryan drove the city to the ground but no one knows why. Power, greed, or maybe he stopped liking people. He tells Jack to go to Fontaine Fisheries that he’ll meet him there.
After dealing with Atlas’ partner who rambles about the tyranny of Frank Fontaine, a former mobster, who waged war on Ryan, Jack gets to where Atlas’s family is and the submarine they’re hiding in. Ryan now knows Jack isn’t CIA but one of Atlas’, a roach he can’t squash but he can do something else. Ryan already knows their plan and ambushes them. They try to fight off the splicers but they’re too late as the submarine blows up. An angered Atlas now plans for Jack to head to where Ryan is to finish this whole thing.
Jack and Atlas go to find Sander Cohen (Denis O’Hare), a former musician and art dealer. Jack walks down the hallway to see a performance are set as Cohen talks about being tired of Atlas’ and Ryan’s sandbox tantrums. He as an artist wants to relief Jack is his tensions as he sends splicers to challenge Jack. Jack uses his plasmids and wrench to make quick work. Cohen finds him intriguing as it’s been a long time since anyone new has arrived. He invites Jack in as doors open to his performance hall. He walks down the hall to see someone playing a piano. The man is having a tough time satisfying Cohen. Cohen tells the man he’s embarrassing himself with their first guest in years. The man reached his limit cusses at Cohen to let him go as we see the man is stapled to the piano chair. Jack tries to calm him down but is interrupted by a huge boom. The man and the piano go up in flames. Jack falls into Cohen’s head game like killing his pupils to finding a woman who was involved with Ryan till he murdered. He hears a recording how she was pregnant.. Jack finishes Cohen masterpiece by putting everyone he killed photos on it. Cohen, who wears a phantom mask, does a full celebration by this and offers Jack access to Ryan.
Jack finds Atlas is gone as Jack now is on a rampage as everything is now getting to him. He submits to the violence to get to Ryan as Ryan goes on about how worms look up to gods and how Jack is just another worm. Jack gets into Ryan’s place as he sees bodies nailed to the walls like warnings or trophies. Ryan tries to explain how what he’s doing renders to the impossible but that be like Mozart being played for a tree frog. Ryan grows delusional as he believes Rapture will return to its glory. Ryan called him a terminate as he built this impossible city. But Ryan still finds everything such a miracle how its all gone down. Jack doesn’t buy all this chatter but Ryan leads him into a lab. A lab where he hears a recording of a man telling a child to murder a puppy. Then he sees photos of himself and his family.
Eventually, Jack enters Ryan's personal office, where Ryan is patiently waiting for Jack by casually playing golf. Ryan explains he fully knew of Atlas' plan, and explains that Jack is his illegitimate child, taken from his mother by Fontaine who placed him out of Ryan's reach on the surface, and genetically modified to age rapidly. Fontaine had planned to use Jack as a trump card in his war with Ryan, bringing him back to Rapture when the time was right; Jack's genetics would allow him to access systems such as the bathysphere that Ryan had locked out long ago.
With no place to run, Ryan is willing to accept death by his own free will, quoting one of his own principles: "A man chooses. A slave obeys." He asks Jack "would you kindly" kill him with the golf club, and Jack is compelled to do so. As Ryan dies, Jack becomes aware that the phrase "would you kindly" has preceded many of Atlas' commands as a hypnotic trigger forcing him to follow Atlas' orders without question; a flashback reveals Jack himself was responsible for crashing his plane near the lighthouse after hearing the phrase on the radio. Atlas demands him to use the self destruct key to inject into the mainframe. Atlas then reveals himself as Fontaine, the thug that tried to take Rapture for himself as part of a long con, having used the Atlas alias to hide himself while providing a figure for the lower class to rally behind. Without Ryan, Fontaine takes over control of Ryan's systems, and leaves Jack to die as he releases hostile security drones into Ryan's locked office.
Jack is saved by Dr. Tenenbaum and the Little Sisters who had previously been rescued. Dr.
Tenenbaum helps Jack to remove Fontaine's conditioned responses, including one that would have stopped his heart. Jack asks what the hell just happened and doc explains to him. Made in the 1940s by Objectivist business magnate Andrew Ryan, Ryan wanted to create a utopia for society’s elite to flourish outside of any government control. To protect Rapture from any involvement from the outside world, Ryan imposed a law that imposed no outside contact to the surface world.
Despite the apparent utopia, classes began to form and grow, former gangster and fellow businessman Frank Fontaine used his influence of Rapture’s lower class to plan a coup. Fontaine profited by creating black market routes with the surface world, and together with her created a cheap plasmid industry of mass-producing ADAM. Fontaine used his plasmid-enhanced army to attack Ryan but faked his death. In the months that followed, a second figure named Atlas rose. Creating further strife, Atlas lead attacks on the factories, freeing the Little Sisters. Unfortunately, this lead for Ryan to create his greatest weapon, a plasmid-enhanced human surgically grafted into giant lumbering diving suits that were psychologically compelled to protect the Little Sisters at all costs.
Tensions came to a head on New Year’s Eve of 1958, when out of nowhere; Atlas ordered an all-out attack on Andrew Ryan. The battle left many citizens dead, and the few survivors with their sanity barricaded themselves away. Once a peaceful utopia fell into a crumbling dystopia of fear, insanity, and violence. The town since then has never recovered nor contacted with the outside world.
With the help of the Little Sisters, Jack is able to make his way to Fontaine's lair to face him. Fontaine, being cornered by Jack, injects himself with a large amount of ADAM, becoming an inhuman monster. Jack is aided by the Little Sisters in draining the ADAM in Fontaine's body and eventually killing him. Jack takes them back to the surface with him and adopts five of them as his daughters, and Jack happily narrates how they go on to live full lives under his care, eventually surrounding him on his deathbed and how his memories might have been fake but at least the final words he heard from his parents rings true, He is special…
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