I almost didn't go and see this film. The trailers made it look like an interesting concept (not the end of the world bit, that's been done to death), but the invisible aliens, with unusual, inventive ways to seek them out, that intrigued me. After initially being skeptical of Attack The Block I found myself impressed by the way that film worked on a budget to create essentially invisible aliens that became instantly recognisable and not laughable. However, in the end I decided that the whole end of the world schtick had been done too often and too badly, and that this would probably be mildly entertaining, but I had a better way to spend 2 hours of my life. Then I read a 1 star review of this film. Now, some people will be reading this and thinking, what on earth are you on about, a 1 star review should surely be the kiss of death for a film. However, whilst I agree with you, some of you will hopefully be thinking what I thought, which was... Wow... that bad? The review talked about how large portions of the film didn't make sense, how the aliens themselves when we see them (which we eventually do) looked so bad it was barely believable that any money had been spent on them at all, and that in general it was shit, but that the last 30 minutes of so were a blast of stupidity. This I gotta see I thought.
Like when you go to a really bad takeaway because 'what's the worst that could happen?' I ended up regretting my decision to see this film. Everything the review said about it was correct, except the part about the final third being enjoyable. The acting is actually decent compared to the rest of the film, and it's a real shame to see Emile Hirsch, who I had so enjoyed in 'Into The Wild' & 'Milk' in such dross, but even Max Minghella & Olivia Thurlby have previously shown that they are much much better than a film like this. First of all the plot. Two young men are going to Russia for a business meeting about an App they have designed. This is mentioned for two reasons: 1) to give them a reason to be in Russia 2) to give them a reason to be talking to the two girls they meet. After that their business venture is all but forgotten, same too for character development. We are basically told that Emile Hirsch's job is to go out and visit clubs and such, finding the best ones for his app, whilst Max Minghella does everything else. Yet somehow (I guess because he's the bigger name star) Emile Hirsch seems to be the one coming up with all the good ideas about what to do in this film. There are some factual errors, like when they are in what is known as a Faraday cage (A device which means that they can use electrical equipment without the Aliens seeing them) they are somehow able to use their mobiles and radios, neither of which would work at all in such circumstances. Again, the writers seem to ignore the laws of Physics, as well as the characters they have created as long as it helps them get the story moving.
One other thing that doesn't make sense, near the end when they are on a boat, and they can see the submarine that they are trying to reach not 100 yards away, they are forced to abandon the boat, they all swim the short distance downstream to the sub, except one character, who somehow thinks that the better option would be to get on land, walk a few hundred yards across alien infested areas to hide in a tram... It doesn't make any sense, unless that is you are struggling to finish your script and realise that one more action sequence will stretch out the film for 20 more minutes. Oh and the Aliens, I have seen better computer graphics on Playstation 1 Games. Seriously, it's abysmal.
This film is worse than any other Alien end of days story I have seen recently, I caught bits of Skyline and Battle: Los Angeles, both of which were terrible, but this was something else, it wasn't enjoyable in the way some bad action films can be, it was confusing, and it made me hope that all the actors involved can get back on track with their careers and get back to making the films that we know they can make.
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