So just to be upfront, this isn't a good movie. But if we're being honest, it wasn't really intended to be; it's your classic "B" movie fare. A fix for people who like certain themes, in this case alien stuff and military stuff, but otherwise a pretty forgettable enterprise.
What's interesting about this film is two things, in my opinion. First, I have to hand it to the producers. B movies used to be just universally awful. Bad cinematography, bad dialogue, bad acting, just plain bad everything. But the industry has come a long way from when I was a kid. While the camera is clearly a less expensive model that doesn't look quite as good as a mainstream flick, it doesn't look absolutely horrible either. It just looks a little home movie-ish. In the hands of a more experienced operator it might have looked pretty close to regular cinema quality.
And the angles and framing of the scenes aren't bad at all; I mean, they're kind of generic, but the scenes feel fairly well thought out and reasonably executed. It may lack artistry, but it's clear someone put some thought into it. It feels less like someone who always dreamed of being a movie director self-funded their own film and more like the people who made the movie were just inexperienced.
The dialogue is similar. A little generic, but (mostly) short of being painful. The delivery, on the other hand, is where things kind of come apart. It's funny, in the first five minutes of the movie I had this hunch that one of the actors actually had some military experience and the rest were struggling actors, so I jumped on IMDB and sure enough, the guy I suspected of having military experience is in fact a former navy seal.
He's the other stand out of the film. I won't even bother to name him, you'll see it almost immediately. He has a kind of coiled energy that's hard to describe, but something that you recognize instinctively. A predator.
It's too bad they couldn't have packed the movie with others like him. He's not a half bad actor, and it might have made the movie more immersive. As it is, it feels very uneven, like there's a team with one true warrior and a bunch of civilians that he's been tricked into thinking are actual soldiers. They puff and strut while he hunts, and you keep expecting him to blink, shake his head, and ask "who the hell are you guys?"
So I wouldn't really recommend this movie, but I will say that it's certainly better than it could have been. And it's on Netflix, at least as of this writing, so you can see it at no cost if you are already a subscriber. Make of that what you will.
What's interesting about this film is two things, in my opinion. First, I have to hand it to the producers. B movies used to be just universally awful. Bad cinematography, bad dialogue, bad acting, just plain bad everything. But the industry has come a long way from when I was a kid. While the camera is clearly a less expensive model that doesn't look quite as good as a mainstream flick, it doesn't look absolutely horrible either. It just looks a little home movie-ish. In the hands of a more experienced operator it might have looked pretty close to regular cinema quality.
And the angles and framing of the scenes aren't bad at all; I mean, they're kind of generic, but the scenes feel fairly well thought out and reasonably executed. It may lack artistry, but it's clear someone put some thought into it. It feels less like someone who always dreamed of being a movie director self-funded their own film and more like the people who made the movie were just inexperienced.
The dialogue is similar. A little generic, but (mostly) short of being painful. The delivery, on the other hand, is where things kind of come apart. It's funny, in the first five minutes of the movie I had this hunch that one of the actors actually had some military experience and the rest were struggling actors, so I jumped on IMDB and sure enough, the guy I suspected of having military experience is in fact a former navy seal.
He's the other stand out of the film. I won't even bother to name him, you'll see it almost immediately. He has a kind of coiled energy that's hard to describe, but something that you recognize instinctively. A predator.
It's too bad they couldn't have packed the movie with others like him. He's not a half bad actor, and it might have made the movie more immersive. As it is, it feels very uneven, like there's a team with one true warrior and a bunch of civilians that he's been tricked into thinking are actual soldiers. They puff and strut while he hunts, and you keep expecting him to blink, shake his head, and ask "who the hell are you guys?"
So I wouldn't really recommend this movie, but I will say that it's certainly better than it could have been. And it's on Netflix, at least as of this writing, so you can see it at no cost if you are already a subscriber. Make of that what you will.