Alex Pettyfer, blonde, handsome, has come back after the horrible bombs like Stormbreaker (boring, uneven), Wild Child (derivative, hokey) and Tormented (pathetic, stupid). With recycled plots, it seems like his career hasn’t been doing well, particularly the failure of Beastly, no matter how many Neil Patrick Harris’ you put into it.
Now, here comes a new young adult adaptation in the mix, trying to lift this burden of a filmography. A bunch of Loriens (regular human looking aliens to us folk) ended up on Earth, with the purpose of being some type of intergalatic weapons to fight Mogadorians, but it turns out they like elimating them to prove a point or not get killed or something because they’re special. And they can only do it in number assigned, we don’t know if it is lotto or something, but we guess we have to take it… and three previously have already died. John Smith (Alex Pettyfer) turns out to be number four and next on the Mogadorians hit list… why I’d never?
Let me clear the air a bit: the on-screen personas that Pettyfer adopts cannot help but be annoying and full of smugness. It doesn’t help that we are supposed to feel for his character, hoping that he’d be punched in the face by some random jock from Paradise, Ohio (yep, that is what it is called). Each piece of dialogue seems artificial and ungenuine, as Pettyfer tries to use his countless topless body shots to cover up the dismal lack of charisma. Though, he’s not the film’s only problem…
Everything from plot to characters, from sound design to marketing campaign, from the type of architecture to the musical accompaniment, is taken from somewhere else. A Frankenstein experiment of so many different film devices, they forgot the one thing that they needed to make it work… a spark of actual life. Without life, you could pick apart where all this money was spent on for the plot… sorry, there wasn’t a lot on that… spent on the look of the film, and that is to embody everything TWILIGHT that you could possibly imagine.
Random woody area in the US? Check.
Hicks who don’t understand any of the lead characters? Check.
Stupid romantic storyline where the only definiting aspect is that he was interested in her and she (Dianna Agron) is interested in him, and let’s them hook up even though our defining characteristics can be explained by minimal defining traits such as photographs and maps (her) and the lack of anything definitive (him)? Ch-ch-ch-check!
Horrible CGI? Oh yeah!
There is a lot to dislike, if there is one thing to like it is Timothy Olyphant. If they made a movie out of his character, I would like it, as he is brings a presence that is severely lacking in the rest of the film. But it isn’t about him, so to dwell on the subject will just annoy, and any fan of Deadwood or Justified (and the occasional Hitman fan if they exist).
Geeky friend stereotype who loves aliens. Villains who are in no way threatening at all. Comic relief dog. Soundtrack that repeats the same beats as other films (look at Trevor Rabin’s filmography if you don’t believe me). This film just wants to punish you for actually knowing how to put bread into a toaster. It wants you to be dumbed down as random CGI is thrown at the screen as ‘PRETTY COLOURS! PRETTY COLOURS!’ for the families, Pettyfer for the girls and the action for the boys… but done pretty half-heartedly that you can see the cogs of the money making machine shudder and break down.
Avoid this film if you like anything original. Avoid if you like anything that is passable, even avoid if you like anything that is so bad it’s good, or even anything so bad it’s way bad. Just forget that this exists, and spent time with friends and family, or hitting your face with a plate, instead of experiencing two hours with this stupid stupid stupid…
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid…
Oh, I give up.