Released in
2017, this movie had a budget of $250,000, this is about 1000th of
the budget for a Hollywood movie, and puts it within the budget of something
like… Interstellar Wars. If you’ve followed my review you know I absolutely
detest that piece of sh*t, so can something salvageable be made is this genre
with that kind of budget, well, I did just review the Australiens, which had
even less of a budget but here’s something a little more serious.
It does
appear to be a passion project, one of Grant Humphries, who co-wrote, produced
and edited this movie.
The critical
reception to this one is pretty negative, so do I see some saving graces or is
this is going to turn into Rage review on my second watch and completely ruin
the comeback? Only way to find out, but beware, spoilers will follow.
We open with
some boring narration around how we’re not the only species on Earth, we see 2
mechs, they do nothing in the entire movie. A man with a button says ‘begin’
and we get our title screen. Not confused yet? Just wait
Let’s meet
our lead characters, David and Cameron, David serves Cameron baked beans in a
sundae glass, in a café, which would presumably have more suitable crockery
than a f*cking sundae glass to serve beans in. They proceed to have some
terribly written and completely inorganic expository dialogue
Cut to
David, I think, in an elevator. They’re talking about an outbreak happening in
London. Movie, you’re giving me flashbacks to Interstellar Wars, don’t do that.
One of the people in elevator turns rabid and attacks another guy, pushing him
out the window. Cut to David talking to Sarah on the phone and my god the actor
who plays Sarah isn’t very good. Thankfully we don’t get to see much of her in
this movie. We see some explosions occur, they’re so badly done I can see the
still in-tact buildings through them.
David is
attacked from behind, he drives away in him BMW (buy a BMW) and thanks to a
decent bit of stunt driving avoids an explosive blue orb. He drives away, sure
to keep his mouth open the whole time, to reunite with his girlfriend. Cameron
meets with his mother, Ellen, who tells him to reach out and feel for
something. And then we cut back to the café? Are you confused now?
So, the pair
soon realise they have to leave but, in the process, Cameron is injured. He
steadies himself on a railing and is sure to clean it thoroughly after, much to
David’s annoyance. They get away to random safe-house #1, where David is
demanding answers about this. Cameron is in fact an alien and who the invaders
are searching for. The humans aren’t infected, they’re under mind control. And
the aggressive ones are doing what exactly?
Cameron is
their target and cleaned the railing since they’d be able to recognise his blood. He’s been hiding
from a war. He also reveals that he can hide himself and others from their sight
if he concentrates, which is how they’ve thus far been undetected. David
doesn’t believe him at first but then a recurring and unnamed attacker attacks,
Cameron manages to hide them long enough for them to escape, prompting them to
run to a damn, where David freaks out and exposits everything we already know.
Apparently,
there are 3 cloaked spaceships. They’re cloaked because it’s more cost
effective that way. Cameron believes that surrendering may get the aliens to
retreat but that’s effectively sentencing to a life in the war… We do get a
fair bit of scenery porn here and I can’t lie, South Africa looks beautiful,
it’s nice that a lot of this movie if filmed outside rather than on crappy
green-screen sets. Not referring to any movie in particular, *cough*Starship
Apocalypse*cough*, but…
Ellen has
joined with a bunch of nameless and most importantly, female, extras, a few of
whom have actual lines of dialogue and everything. But enough about them, let’s
get to the male dominated bad guys. We meet Garabon, he’s driving a car
because… anyway, he enters a conference with rival villain Irekhull and their
leader Devanera, I’ll credit that these names sound alien, even if this is the
most human looking alien race since… most of the main characters in Star Wars.
He was given
40 days to find the boy, most of which he’s already used… seriously? Anyway,
Ellen is attacked by someone but she shoots him, this alerts Garabon to her
approximate locate and he decides to head off personally to retrieve the
information. Irekhull sees this as an opportunity to get rid of him.
They release
drones that are supposed to test blood in one of their better looking special
effects, they begin to test a bunch of children in the rain… guess they were
the only extras they had that day. Around this time we see David starting to
Flash back to him and Sarah being split, it does mean we get to see of more of
Sarah which…
Anyway,
David and Cameron are hiding in an aeroplane now, and Cameron is being an idiot
and shouting out his location for reason. We see some more extras being chased
by men with guns, Cameron decides to help for reasons and we’re introduced to
Shanna, the token female of the group. She’s there to be romantic interest for
Cameron and barely impact the plot.
Anyway, they
drive away a bit, and was he planning to leave David behind? Asshole.
She later
asks ‘are you slow?’
When really,
several factors were kinda obvious, like the fact Cameron managed to hide you when
they were searching the car. Cameron tries to lie for some reason but because
he isn’t remotely convincing, David persuades him to tell her everything.
Back to
Ellen, she meets male characters Richard and Graeme, who is actually Garabon,
but they don’t know that yet. He claims to be looking for his father and
describes his relationship with Devenara, who’s listening in. Anyway, as he
tries to convince Ellen to take him to the ship they plan to meet at, they
arrive at a hangar which is very conveniently well stocked with supplies.
Rather too convenient because as it turns out it’s an ambush from Irekhull’s
forces, lead by his 2 lady commanders, I think. Garabon defeats the attackers
and reports this to Devenara, who demands that it’s investigated. This will
largely amount to nothing… This attack leads to the ladies all splitting up and
Richard going somewhere so Ellen agrees to his offer.
David,
Cameron and Shanna are discovered and attacked, good job David has a gun… it’s
actually not a bad action scene, although Shanna disappears half way through and Richard rescues them at the last minute, leaving me with loads of
questions. Because of the ambush, Devenara grants Garabon a little more time,
because apparently it’s been 2 days already. He and Ellen arrive at the ship,
Ellen was expecting Cameron to have arrived before her but he isn’t there.
Garabon is
not pleased, and Ellen quickly catches on, she tries to draw her gun but
Garabon already has it and they have a moral debate about who’s fault
everything is. This movie lacks a lot of context that would make this argument
interesting. Devenera gives a retreat order to Garabon, he’s had enough and his
next to move is to DESTROY THE WORLD! MUHAHAHAHAHA!
Irekhull’s
ship uncloaks and it doesn’t look great. Cameron sees this and plans to head up
and surrender before they discharge the weapon. Garabon heads up, with Ellen
for some reason. Cameron finds the ship and I’ll say the way the interior looks
isn’t entirely sh*t. The exterior is another matter. Somehow the black guy
who’s name I’ve never been told has made it onto the ship and tries to attack,
David tries to defend Cameron but his back is pressed on one of those exploding
blue orbs.
Cameron
somehow manages to absorb the blue orb, giving enough time for David to shoot
the guy. Apparently this is the pure light, and yeah, we’re about at the climax
of the movie at this point, this is the first time that phrase has come up.
Cameron is weakened by doing this, and ship is crashing, David manages to crash
land the ship before succumbing to his injury, in a long death sequence that
almost rivals Deadpool 2.
OK, so the
Collectives are a bunch of people powering the weapon, think the druids in
Voltron except less important. Cameron is somehow able to make telepathic
contact because they’re at the stage where they’re throwing random powers for
him. They begin to have seizures and the weapon begins to destabilise.
Ellen talks
Garabon into allowing Cameron to surrender in exchange for not firing the
weapon, Garabon tries to ask Devenara to abort but his communications are being
blocked by Irekhull. Garabon leaves to find Cameron. The weapon Is being
discharged but thanks to Cameron having a convenient flashback, he manages to
pull Irekhull’s ship down to the ground, kill the collectives and somehow
revive David as well… why not?
They
reunite with Shanna but the reunion’s brief as Garabon and Ellen have
arrived. Cameron agrees to surrender if Ellen be allowed to stay on Earth,
forgetting she was only on Earth to take care of him but. David rides off the
motorbike he pulled out of his ass and reunites with Sarah.
So that was
Taking Earth and I’ll give it credit for trying
Make no
mistake, by the standards of Hollywood blockbusters, this isn’t a good movie,
even when it comes to writing and such. The acting is tolerable for the most
part, but nothing spectacular. None of the major actors involved here have
other writing credits so this doesn’t surprise me.
The plot is
confusing, and it doesn’t help that there’s little to distinguish the aliens
and the regular humans. Were they the aliens or the humans under mind control? I don’t know. The ending is odd, I get what they were going for, the sacrifice
for the greater good routine but we as the audience are lacking a lot of
context for that ending to work. We don’t see other than in exposition why they
ran, and even then, it’s vague as hell.
But it is
worth remembering this movie was made for $100,000, so the fact that the
effects are terrible is par of the course, the robots not getting any use is
largely because of the budget and I applaud them for at least trying, which is
where a lot of low budget sci-fi movies fail (Ie Interstallar Wars)
Exterior
filming is welcomed, the live action environments look amazing, it does make
South Africa look like a great place to go. And it means that they can’t be
over-reliant on cr*ppy green screen.
This movie
carries a lot of problems that under most circumstances might be enough to push
it into the Rage category but it’s decently shot, the acting is competent,
mostly, and the story is… actually, forget about the story, it’s pretty
terrible. It carries a certain charm that prevents me from outright hating it.
Rating -25%
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