Originally published to 8 News Now on March 8, 2025.

In what has proved to be a slow start to 2025, “Novocaine” is an action-packed bloodbath hoping to boost the box office. Nathan Caine, portrayed by Jack Quaid, is a man with a rare disorder that doesn’t allow him to feel pain. While that may sound like a superpower in theory, the film makes it clear that, in practice, it’s quite a hindrance. His condition disallows him from taking even the slightest risk and forces Caine into his own safety bubble. However, his situation changes completely when Sherry, played by Amber Midthunder, enters Caine’s life.

Jack Quaid is charming and fluid as playing Nathan Caine requires him to be. He portrays the character with a snappy and warm demeanor, immediately endearing you to Caine. As a protagonist, he works. The film is unapologetically gruesome and is an underdog frontrunner for the most violent movie of the decade so far. It’s everything you’d want from a horror movie, with none of the horror, and for the most part, the violence hits hard and succeeds in its believability.

Jacob Batalon, who plays a player Caine regularly engages in an online video game, also introduces welcome character to the film. However, being a known and recognizable commodity, Batalon’s presence is detrimental to an early joke in the movie, and it’s that kind of slipshod execution that keeps Novocaine from reaching great.

Novocaine relies on a familiar and still intriguing concept of the dissonance between mind and body. It’s a concept that plays out in 2018’s Upgrade, when the film’s protagonist is often thrown, unwittingly, into intense fights where his body might perform intricate attacks, but his face shows confusion and fear that doesn’t match the action. 2018’s Venom utilized a similar technique. Novocaine plays out the trope well. The violence onscreen may be impactful, but Caine barely reacts physically to much of it.

While that trope may be successful in Novocaine, the laundry list of clichés played out in the film are less successful. Every convention from modern cinema that you’ve seen played out over and over and over again onscreen happens in Novocaine. The film has very few actual surprises that aren’t drenched in blood.

Unfortunately, the middling malaise spreads to most of the cast. Amber Midthunder and Betty Gabriel play their characters with no frills, and Matt Walsh brings some humor to an otherwise forgettable role. Unfortunately, everyone else, including the crew of bank-robbing villains, overact themselves into oblivion.

The result is, ironically, a film that is difficult to feel. It delivers relentless carnage but fails to leave a mark beyond the bloodstains. While it may be enjoyable as forgettable streaming fodder, it gives viewers nothing worth holding onto after the theatrical experience ends.