I am a sci-fi genre addict and can excuse many failings in a film, but this was one of the slowest, least-engaging films I have ever attempted to watch. I've flagged this up for spoilers, but to be honest so little happens in this film there is almost no plot that can be spoiled! The opening minutes give the impression that you might be in for an interesting science fiction adventure, but then almost nothing happens for the next 40 minutes apart from people talking about exciting events that have taken place off-camera (with infrequent cut scenes of spacecraft possibly doing something interesting away from the narrative and black SUVs driving about).
"We're going to set the world on fire with this" exclaims a character - as we watch film of a guy wandering about in the desert - filmed on, seemingly, a broken smart phone, coupled to snap shots and documents gathered through Google. Exciting music kicks in as they - upload it to the internet...
We're told that the Moon is an artificial base for an invasion, and that NASA are in on events - but then, without showing us anything of the sort, the film immediately moves onto the more important shots of MiB agents disturbing afternoon wine tasting (with their faces suggesting that they are utterly terrified of confronting an unarmed OAP).
After an hour we pay a brief visit to what appears to be the CGI set of Babylon 5. 14 minutes later a voice-over tells us about the (unseen) invasion and later (not shown) space-battle and the end of life on Earth, while we see a few space ships gently flying about on the screen accompanied by Dvorak's New World Symphony - with the film ending by showing us the new human home world (from orbit only).
Bluntly, this film takes itself too seriously, yet delivers far less content to think about than even parody films like Iron Sky. There is no reason for the viewer to care about the fate of the main characters, or even fear the arrival of the alien invasion and it was a real effort to watch this film through to its conclusion. As an actor I try to respect other people's work, and I keep almost all DVDs that I buy to watch again periodically, but this one will be going straight into the nearest charity box.
"We're going to set the world on fire with this" exclaims a character - as we watch film of a guy wandering about in the desert - filmed on, seemingly, a broken smart phone, coupled to snap shots and documents gathered through Google. Exciting music kicks in as they - upload it to the internet...
We're told that the Moon is an artificial base for an invasion, and that NASA are in on events - but then, without showing us anything of the sort, the film immediately moves onto the more important shots of MiB agents disturbing afternoon wine tasting (with their faces suggesting that they are utterly terrified of confronting an unarmed OAP).
After an hour we pay a brief visit to what appears to be the CGI set of Babylon 5. 14 minutes later a voice-over tells us about the (unseen) invasion and later (not shown) space-battle and the end of life on Earth, while we see a few space ships gently flying about on the screen accompanied by Dvorak's New World Symphony - with the film ending by showing us the new human home world (from orbit only).
Bluntly, this film takes itself too seriously, yet delivers far less content to think about than even parody films like Iron Sky. There is no reason for the viewer to care about the fate of the main characters, or even fear the arrival of the alien invasion and it was a real effort to watch this film through to its conclusion. As an actor I try to respect other people's work, and I keep almost all DVDs that I buy to watch again periodically, but this one will be going straight into the nearest charity box.