Invasion Earth (2016) Review
The story follows a group of addicts who attend therapy to avoid being sent to prison, while a TV journalist goes undercover and joins the group to try and expose this as a scam. However, all of their lives are thrown into chaos by the beginning of an alien invasion.
INVASION EARTH, written and directed by James Twyman, was actually completed four years ago but is only now receiving a release On Demand and DVD now. It starts off well with a nicely paced opener where it’s discovered that there’s an alien fleet coming our way and that they’ll be here in approximately three months. I was left feeling a little baffled by what followed as it would appear that the aliens are amongst us already and not three months away after all.
After that initially befuddlement we are introduced to our core group of characters, youngsters who are attending therapy in the middle of nowhere to avoid being sent to prison. Initially, and as expected, they prove to be reluctant to partake however they soon start to feel the benefits of the attention they are receiving and bond with each other. Elsewhere peripheral characters are being zapped out of existence by beams of purple neon and it’s only a matter of time before those colourful beams set their focus on the youngsters.
There’s nothing to particular dislike about INVASION EARTH, the acting standard is okay, no better or worse than that you’ll see in your average TV soap, but despite insights into the youngsters receiving therapy they still play as caricatures rather than fully-fleshed out characters. I guess for many the real issue for most will be the fact that they would be expecting INDEPENDANCE DAY-sized thrills so, for the most part, I imagine that they’ll feel that they have probably happened upon the wrong movie. Aside from the odd flash of purple neon there’s very little action on that front until much later on, also it’s too long for what is essentially a drama with sci-fi leanings.
OFFICIAL TRAILER
