This movie, in the right hands, could have been legendary. Instead, it was spoiled by unimaginative, formulaic direction and writing.
After a few scenes into the movie I asked myself if I am watching just an expensive version of an Asylum movie, that tries to rip off just the bad parts of "Skyline", an invasion movie from 2010, that showed very good special effects and cinematography , but almost completely absent directional abilities.
And in this context, acting abilities. I always blame bad directors for causing 75 percent of bad performances of their cast. Here, Michael Peña is extremely wooden and static, but he is a renowned actor who participated in at least two Oscar-winning movies, and recently was leading in the critically acclaimed series "Narcos:Mexico", Lizzy Caplan is a decent actress, and so is Mike Colter. They have no means against the bad direction and the poorly elaborated script.
It is a long time since I saw such a accumulation of cliché-driven dialogs and scenes, and in the end, with so much lack of cohesion and incredibility, where 20 tons of suspension of disbelief are not enough to follow the story without the constant urge to ask "WTF ?".
When the big twist is revealed, the movie finally makes sense, but yet it stays sub-par because of its bad execution. I remember "Sixth Sense", where script and direction - ad then, proper acting - made the most out of its plot before and after the big reveal, just with good filmmaking.
I hope that a decade or two in the future, someone chooses to remake this miscarriage with a proper script and a good director.
After a few scenes into the movie I asked myself if I am watching just an expensive version of an Asylum movie, that tries to rip off just the bad parts of "Skyline", an invasion movie from 2010, that showed very good special effects and cinematography , but almost completely absent directional abilities.
And in this context, acting abilities. I always blame bad directors for causing 75 percent of bad performances of their cast. Here, Michael Peña is extremely wooden and static, but he is a renowned actor who participated in at least two Oscar-winning movies, and recently was leading in the critically acclaimed series "Narcos:Mexico", Lizzy Caplan is a decent actress, and so is Mike Colter. They have no means against the bad direction and the poorly elaborated script.
It is a long time since I saw such a accumulation of cliché-driven dialogs and scenes, and in the end, with so much lack of cohesion and incredibility, where 20 tons of suspension of disbelief are not enough to follow the story without the constant urge to ask "WTF ?".
When the big twist is revealed, the movie finally makes sense, but yet it stays sub-par because of its bad execution. I remember "Sixth Sense", where script and direction - ad then, proper acting - made the most out of its plot before and after the big reveal, just with good filmmaking.
I hope that a decade or two in the future, someone chooses to remake this miscarriage with a proper script and a good director.