The ending of Elevation has several world-building and thematic elements to break down. The 2024 monster movie is set in the Rocky Mountains region of the United States, allowing for a unique gimmick. Monsters have invaded Earth and killed a significant portion of the population without mercy, but they won’t travel above 8,000 feet in alтιтude. This puts Will (Anthony Mackie) in a bind when he needs to travel to save his son’s life. Elevation’s reviews praise the film’s character dynamics and drama, which serve as the narrative’s core amidst action and thriller elements.

Elevation is directed by George Nolfi, whose previous credits include writing for The Bourne Ultimatum, Ocean’s Twelve, and directing The Adjustment Bureau. Elevation’s cast is led by two Marvel Cinematic Universe stars: Anthony Mackie and Morena Baccarin. The end of the film sees their characters discover a method to finally kill a Reaper, giving new hope to the human communities that had been living in the Rockies. They raise a pirate flag, uniting humans in the area to go out and hunt Reapers, killing several before the credits roll.

How Nina Kills The Reaper In Elevation’s Ending

Nina’s Cobalt-Coated Bullets Cause Reapers To Self-Implode

Before the apocalypse in Elevation, Nina was a scientist who worked in a lab in Boulder, Colorado. Her goal in the film is to reach her lab, where she could use a chemical substance to enhance bullets for killing Reapers by triggering an electric charge. She does this by practicing on a piece of hardened Reaper armor that she salvages early in the movie. When practicing in the lab, her first several attempts fail before she decides to apply cobalt to the mixture. This allows her to kill the first Reaper that attacks her.

Nina’s idea to apply cobalt comes from her backstory. She explains to Will that, on the day the Reapers initially arrived, she’d been working with her company to use cobalt to enhance the power of batteries. She connects the dots that applying cobalt might enhance the charge she needs from the Reapers and, by doing so, causes them to self-implode upon impact from her bullets. This method proves worthwhile on multiple Reapers, causing her to raise the pirate flag back in their community.

What Raising The Pirate Flag Means For Humanity’s Future

The Pirate Flag Lets The Human Communities Know A Reaper Has Been Killed

The pirate flag in Elevation is essentially a beacon symbol to be seen by the other communities, stating that they’d found a way to kill a Reaper. It’s established earlier in the film that these human communities are using radios to keep in contact, but that they’ve ceased usage in order to save electricity. When the flag is raised, the communities reignite their contact, then send out a team of humans with cobalt-coated bullets to begin fighting back against the Reapers.

For the first time in years, humans not only have a way to defend themselves against Reapers, but they also have the upper hand. Nina’s method proves easily effective, as it only requires one sH๏τ to land on the mᴀssive targets for them to be destroyed. Surely, it will take some time for them to deal with the Reapers, as there should still be a significant number of them remaining on Earth. What’s important is that they now have the tools to do so.

How Will’s Wife Died & What It Means

Will’s Wife Went On A Mission With Nina To Boulder

Will’s character arc in Elevation is about him reckoning with the death of his wife. She was the mother of his child, and he encouraged her not to support Nina in her mission to reach her lab in Boulder. But she, believing in Nina’s mission, decided to accompany her despite Will’s pleading and never returned from the journey. Will was left to take care of their son on his own, and grew resentful toward Nina for bringing his wife on the mission.

Ultimately, Will ends up fulfilling the mission that his wife never came back from. Rather than just obtaining the oxygen tanks for his son, he helps accompany Nina to her lab, ultimately providing humanity with a sense of hope for the first time in years. Will was focused on protecting his son and family, but his growth throughout the film was realizing that the only way to really protect the ones he loved was to take a stand against the bigger threat.

What Happened To Nina’s Family Before Elevation?

Nina’s Family Died When The Reapers First Arrived

Will and Katie (Maddie Hᴀsson) spend the majority of the film believing Nina is willing to risk everything because she doesn’t have any personal attachment. One of the movie’s biggest twists is that Nina did have a family, but she lost them during the initial apocalypse. It’s unclear what exactly happened to them, but Nina is regretful that she was working rather than spending time with them when they died. By the time of Elevation, she’s channeled her feelings into anger and a desire for revenge against the Reapers.

How Elevation’s Post-Credits Scene Sets Up A Sequel

A New Wave Of Reapers Seems To Have Come From The Sky

After the victory in the movie’s ending, Elevation’s post-credits scene suggests that things might not remain so positive. The brief scene shows Will and Nina looking up to the sky as meteors barrel toward Earth, presumably setting up a future threat. An important aspect of the Reapers is that they’re machines, yet the film never explains who invented them or why they can’t ascend past 8,000 feet, so there are already established questions for a sequel to answer.

The post-credits scene in particular seems to suggest a new threat of Reapers. The first Reapers came from underground, and now that they’ve been beaten, a new wave will come from the sky. It’s purely speculation, but a sequel could see humanity forced underground, into spaces like the mines shown in the first film, with the new Reapers having an inverse effect from the originals, where they can’t go below a certain elevation level. This could mean that the machines are some sort of test for humanity’s survival skills and ability to adjust to their surroundings.

The Real Meaning Of Elevation’s Ending Explained

Elevation Is A Movie About The Real Meaning Of Survival

Elevation is a fairly straightforward film with ideas about the internal experience of an apocalyptic situation. While humans can survive and adapt to different circumstances, there’s always going to be an ultimate human desire to expand and flourish that can’t be contained in a physical or metaphorical space. The human beings in the communities in Elevation are alive physically, but they aren’t fulfilling their purpose by simply existing.

Throughout the movie, each character is forced to reckon with what exactly makes them human. Nina has isolated herself and focused purely on anger and revenge, and Will helps her remember her humanity by showing her the family she once loved. Will has centered his focus purely on his son’s survival and has failed to realize that by just purely surviving, his son will never be able to really live. Thus, these characters end the events of Elevation with a better understanding of their individual purpose.

How The Elevation Ending Was Received

Elevation had a mixed but interesting reception. Not only did the 2024 Anthony Mackie sci-fi movie split the opinions of critics more-or-less down the middle, but it’s also an example of a film that highlights where the expectations and desires of professional movie reviewers doesn’t correlate with that of general audiences. This is demonstrated by the Rotten Tomatoes scores of director George Nolfi’s movie, which holds a 56% Tomatometer rating (critical score) but an 80% Popcornmeter rating (audience score).

However, the ending of Elevation isn’t responsible for the mixed results. For the most part, the negative responses to Elevation were down to a single flaw – overfamiliarity. There are dozens of sci-fi monster movies out there, and many critics simply felt that the film wasn’t showing them anything they hadn’t seen before. Even many positive reviews of Elevation picked up on this. For example, critic Zachary Lee of Roger Ebert enjoyed the movie, but acknowledged that it does nothing innovative:

While “Elevation” may never rise above its genre trappings or escape the shadow of its influences, it never stoops so low as to be mindlessly vapid. Simply executed at ninety minutes, it’s escapism of the highest order, offering perils at a screen’s distance of safety.

The Elevation ending isn’t really cited as a strength or weakness in any of the responses to Elevation, positive or negative. It was a conclusion that perfectly suited the film, though it’s also one that’s incredibly similar to many other post-apocalyptic action thrillers that involve humanity being almost wiped out by monstrous beings. This means that those who enjoyed Elevation’s solid execution of a by-the-numbers story appreciated the final moments, whereas those who didn’t saw it as one final yawn before the credits thankfully rolled.