So the year is present day 2012 in this case. The film opens with a load of shaky camera work as we follow a SWAT team into a house while some shitty dramatic music plays. One of the SWAT guys says that they're "Go for termination" and we hear a load of screams over their radios, presumably while the SWAT team are killing the occupants of the house. Then we cut to a blond woman in a darkened room. She tries to light a match. She swears. Then she runs out the front door of the house into the pouring rain, accompanied by the same shitty dramatic music from before. The woman looks up, and as she does the music slows and stops as the scene goes into slow-mo and ends. Then we cut to a nightclub. Cue shitty dance music and lots of far too attractive people dancing. It's definitely not your usual Friday night cattle market here. But who knows, maybe clubs like this actually do exist, just not in my world. Some people of no consequence who happen to be friends are at the club. One of them is the blond woman we've just seen. Her boyfriend is also there, as are two of her boyfriend's mates. Mate one is an army guy who's currently on leave and is basically out on the pull. Mate two is totally wasted and is quickly managing to repulse everyone of the opposite sex inside the club.
Blond woman's boyfriend asks her to go outside with him. They end up sitting on the roof of a car and start talking about some bollocks or other. Back in the club army guy has spotted a very attractive brunette woman. He goes over and starts dancing with her. They start talking. It turns out she's American. Back outside and blond woman's boyfriend is spouting some soppy nonsense at her. He even says "This is so fucking cheesy". You're not wrong there mate. But blond woman replies "Cheese is good. I love cheese". To cut a bad scene short, he proposes and she says yes. Back inside the club and wasted guy falls into a woman's cleavage and spills his drink down her dress. Two bouncers come over and start giving him grief. He calls for army guy to come and help him. Next we see army guy being thrown outside by the two bouncers. They're giving him a hard time. Blond woman's boyfriend goes over to help, despite her begging him not to get involved. So there's a big scrap where even blond woman gets involved at one point. Army guy gets one of the bouncers in a headlock and threatens to break his neck, so the bouncers back off and the fight is over. Meanwhile mate two, Vincent, comes out of the club after all the fighting is over. Army guy calls Vincent a wanker for blowing his chances with the American woman. He starts talking about her and how beautiful she is. But then he starts describing her using cruder terms and rather predictably she's stood right behind him. But she just smiles and says "You had me at beautiful". They all go back to blond woman's place. Blond woman and her boyfriend have sex. American woman and army guy have sex. Vincent throws up in the bog and passes out.
Next morning and Vincent is the first to rise. He's feeling a little delicate. He goes to collect the milk from the doorstep. Do people still have milk delivered? Vincent sees the neighbour and goes over to talk to him. The neighbour says that the power is out for the whole street. He says it's been out since about six. The neighbour says he's off to meet his wife in London. He said she was called in for an emergency meeting. Apparently she works in "Government domestic crisis management". That's handy. Blond woman's boyfriend appears. The three guys all realise that there's no phone signal. Neighbour guy says that his landline is out too. Neighbour guy then tries the radio in his car. There's no reception on that either.
Army guy and American woman go for a walk. A scruffy guy wearing a hoodie appears with numbers and symbols drawn on his face and hands. He starts spouting stuff from the bible; Matthew 24:36 specifically. Army guy dismisses him as a nutter. Then scruffy guy looks at American woman, pauses for a second and runs off. Army guy and American woman go to a shopping centre. Army guy sees one of his friends who is assistant manager at a supermarket. He says they won't be opening today as there's no power. He also says the power is out for pretty much the whole country. He then shows Army guy a video on his phone. It's some guys filming themselves skating, but then several objects streak across the sky and crash in a nearby field causing big explosions.Cut to evening time and they're all back together at blond woman's house. They're playing charades as there's not much else to do. They all start to speculate about what's behind the power outage. Their theories range from solar flares to dirty bombs. They then realise that all the watches and clocks in the house stopped at the same time. Yes you guessed it, at 12:36am. We then see blond woman and her boyfriend in bed. Vincent knocks on their door. He asks if he can sleep on the floor in their room because he's scared. How old is he, six? Next blond woman is woken from a nightmare. She goes downstairs. The whole house begins to shake. Everyone else is woken and they all think it's an earthquake. But they look out of the window and see something in the sky. They all venture out of the front door. They look up to see a very bad cgi alien spacecraft (think Independence Day but shit). They all go back inside and get dressed. Army guy gets his pistol.
They all go to the supermarket to get supplies. There's a queue of people there and no one to open the store. A young black woman is first in the queue. But a group of white lads come and push in front of her. She asks that they not push in and the lads give her a load of racist abuse. The woman says that her husband is English and that she needs food for her kids. One of the lads goes to throw a punch at the woman. Army guy steps in and blocks him. Army guy's friend who is the assistant manager arrives. He lets our friends and the young black woman into the supermarket via a side entrance. They begin sneaking around the supermarket picking up supplies, conscious of the fact that if anyone waiting out front sees them it'll cause a riot. Sadly they're spotted and the racist guys come in and start giving army guy grief. American woman finds army guy's pistol and she fires three shots into the air. They all make it safely out of the supermarket. In the car park a couple of big guys ask army guy to hand over their supplies, and their car too. Army guy pulls his gun on them and the guys decide to find an easier target.
They arrive back at blond woman's place with the supplies. Blond woman says that they should go to George's as it'll be safer. American woman asks who George is. Vincent replies "Well let's just say he's a controller short of a PlayStation". We then see a very brief shot of Jean-Claude Van Damme making fists with his hands, while stood in front of his kitchen cupboards? They all agree it's a good idea to go see George, but army guy says he needs to drive to his house and pick up some more bullets for his gun first. American woman insists that she go with him. They stop for fuel. But the old git at the petrol station says all the pumps are dry. He says the army turned up earlier in the day and took every drop. The old git also tells them that he has seen three of the alien spacecraft. The old git reckons that the human race is basically screwed. So they leave the miserable old git and drive off. They're driving along when suddenly a car crashes into them and rolls over. The car is on fire and about to explode. There's a woman in the car who's dead. A man in the car is in poor shape. They decide the kindest thing they can do is suffocate him so that he doesn't suffer. Army guy pulls American woman away from the burning car, but she looks back and screams that there's a girl still alive in the car. They manage to rescue her just before the car explodes. She has a wound that needs attention so they make their way to a nearby chemists.
Back at the house blond woman's neighbour turns up. He's back from London but he looks pretty beat up and scared. Blond woman's boyfriend asks him if he knows anything and what they should do. He just replies "Run! They're coming!" in what must surely be some of the crappiest acting I've ever seen. The neighbour guy then gets back in his car and fucks off again.
Army guy and American woman arrive at the chemists with the little girl. There's a policeman outside. Army guy tells the policeman that the girl needs medical attention. The policeman says it's not his problem. But after some macho bollocks between army guy and the policeman, he agrees to let army guy in for five minutes. The little girl points at the policeman and says "That's the man with the purple mark". Army guy takes the girl inside the chemists and lays her on the counter. All of a sudden the policeman raises his machine gun to shoot the girl, but army guy manages to knock the gun away. The policeman and army guy start fighting. While the policeman manages to knock army guy backwards, he yet again tries to kill the girl by strangling her. Army guy manages to stop him and the two guys scrap again. American woman appears and jumps on the policeman's back, but she's knocked away. After a fight scene that goes on way too long (seriously, I was getting bored) American woman manages to stab the policeman in the neck and he dies. We see through a tear in his trousers that he does indeed have a purple symbol on his upper thigh.
Back at blond woman's house it appears that the alien invasion has started as there's lots of alien shit flying around in the sky. For some bizarre reason at this point Vincent and blond woman's boyfriend decide to go and find a car, leaving blond woman alone in the house. I'm still not clear why they did that. They clearly wanted blond woman to be alone in the house and couldn't come up with a good enough plot point as to why that should be the case. So blond woman is alone in the dark, trying to hide from these alien probe things that keep coming to the windows. Again it's a scene that goes on for far too long and was far too boring. It's just blond woman creeping around the house being scared. Eventually it turns into the scene we saw at the start where she's trying to light a match. We see her once again run outside into the rain and look up. This time we see what she's looking at. It's one of the flying alien probe things. All of a sudden there's a shot from somewhere and the alien probe thing blows up. It turns out to be a couple of soldiers with a bazooka. Everyone else turns up at this point. It turns out the soldiers are the last of their unit, so they decide to hang out with our friends. Scruffy hoodie guy appears and steals army guy's gun out of his pocket. He starts waving the gun around at everyone. The two soldiers point their guns at him and tell him to put his gun down. The solders shoot scruffy hoodie guy, but as they do he fires a shot that hits blond woman's boyfriend in the chest. He dies.
They finally make it to George's place. Yes, good old Jean-Claude finally puts in a proper appearance. Well, I say that. But it looks like all of JCVD's scenes were filmed in a different location, with none of the other actors present. You see a shot of our friends asking JCVD a question, then you see a shot of him answering, stood alone in front of some kitchen cupboards. It looks really odd and disconcerting. Anyway, he definitely phoned his scenes in with this particular film. He sounds dreary and positively bored. JCVD rambles on for ages about alien invasions, alien technology and all that sort of shit. He says the aliens can take human form and it's almost impossible to tell them apart. JCVD tells everyone to stick to their friends and people they know. The two soldiers say they've known each other for 15 years. Vincent says he's known army guy and blond woman for years too. So then of course everyone turns to look at American woman. JCVD says the way to check if she's E.T. is to look for a purple symbol on the inside of her upper thigh. The two soldiers want American woman to strip in front of them. But army guy says he'll take American woman into the other room so she can undress in private.
In the other room army guy faces the door. He tells American woman that he's genuinely sorry to have to do this. At this point he confesses to her that he's been dishonourably discharged from the army. He turns to face her and she shoots him in the head. She then manages to disable the two soldiers. Then she has a fight with JCVD. But it's shot in such a way that they probably just used body doubles. American woman grabs blond woman and holds the gun to her head. They head outside, closely pursued by the two soldiers. The two women head into an outbuilding where American woman leaves blond woman. American woman heads outside and just as the two soldiers are about to shoot her, she de-materialises and is picked up by one of the alien probe things. JCVD comes outside. He looks up at the alien probe thing, says "Oh shit" and is then blown to bits. The probe turns its attention to the little girl (yeah, she's still hanging about) but it doesn't shoot her. Then some other alien ships turn up and they start having a bit of a battle. Maybe that's what JCVD meant by alien technology. Anyway, there's a load of flying things shooting at each other and it's all very confusing and very boring. Blond woman, Vincent, the two soldiers and the little girl make their escape in the soldiers' truck. One of the soldiers puts some music on. It's "Nowhere to Run" by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. Oh please, give me a break. So Nowhere to Run plays while the soldiers drive along shooting at shit. One of the soldiers is killed and the truck crashes. They manage to make a run for it back to the farmhouse.
Then it all goes a bit nuts (like it hasn't already). Vincent punches blond woman and attempts to rape her. The remaining soldier starts fighting Vincent. He beats Vincent to shit but blond woman stops the soldier short of killing him. Meanwhile the little girl looks on in horror, probably thinking that her newly acquired family seems a little on the dysfunctional side. The power suddenly comes back on. The news is on TV. And guess who the newsreader is? Yes, it's American woman. Then yet again we see the SWAT team approach the farmhouse. It turns out the SWAT team are in fact aliens, as we now see that one of them is the policeman from earlier. They enter the building and report that there's a girl inside who can positively identify them. So they get the go ahead to kill everyone. We hear the dying screams of our friends over the SWAT team's radios. The End. Aww, I love a happy ending.
I honestly don't know where to start with this one. This film is just a huge pile of incoherent shite. It's utter, utter bollocks. The plot is meandering and has no point. The acting is mediocre at its best and laughable at its worst. The characters are all one dimensional and thoroughly dislikeable; I felt no sympathy or empathy for any of them, I just thought they were a bunch of tossers who were so far up their own arses it was untrue. The music is shitty house/garage/maisonette/shed/whatever the hell you call it these days. But oh my god, the camera work! I can only imagine that the camera operators were in a perpetual state of seizure. It was annoying. Actually it was thoroughly nauseating. Why do films these days need to do it? It's not big and it's not clever. Personally I think it gets used to try to cover up shite directing. Not that it does of course. And then there were constant split-second flashbacks/flashforwards. Bloody hell they were annoying. Not to mention completely unnecessary.
As you may have gathered there's not really much sci-fi in this film. I really had hoped for more, especially when you consider the bloody film is called U.F.O. The only effects are the alien spacecraft, which we see briefly, and it's all crappy cgi anyway. This is just a film about a bunch of people I didn't care about doing a bunch of stuff I didn't care about. And they all die, which is no great loss. There are actually some pretty well known actors in this. Sean Pertwee plays the scruffy hoodie guy, but his appearance is all too brief. As is Julian Glover's appearance as the old git at the petrol station. Julian Glover, best known to Star Wars fans of course as General Veers in The Empire Strikes Back. But sadly not even an actor from the best of the Star Wars movies could save this sorry excuse of a film. And let's be brutally honest, Jean-Claude Van Damme was never going to do it. I don't think this film would appeal to even the most hardcore of JCVD fans. He's in it for roughly ten minutes, he sounds bored, he talks a lot of nonsense, and the way his scenes are cut together makes it difficult to watch. This is by far the lowest scoring film on IMDb that he appears in. That score by the way is 3.1 out of 10. Honestly, for me that's too high. At no point was I even remotely entertained or engaged by this film. If I were to use one word to sum up this film (other than swear words) I think it would have to be superficial. Move along people. Nothing to see here.
No comments:
Post a Comment