I don't review many films on here. I'm only bothering to write about this one because I love movies, I love Independent Film and I love this part of the World...
There are now two very, very bad films called "U.F.O". The first was a straight to video thing a few years back with Chubby Brown and now there's this: Filmed just down the road from me in Derby and Allestree by self-styled triple-hyphenate Domininc Burns. (Well, he can certainly Produce - he got this made, after all - but he evidently knows nothing of Writing or Directing.) I have no idea if there's a market for this sort of thing - a sort of alien invasion action fantasy filtered through a lad mag' sensibility - but I suspect it didn't cost very much at all (I'd guess the "£2.5 Million" is either pure hyperbole or else no-one was getting very good value for money on this shoot) and will probably go into profit purely on worldwide TV sales alone (where the inclusion of Mr Van Damme - in a cameo that actually amounts to a series of downright eccentric inserts - isn't going to hurt).
Performances: 2/10 - Particular humiliation is heaped upon veterans Julian Glover and Sean Pertwee in cameos - both of whom should have known better.
Visuals: 2/10 (One of those is for remembering to take the lens cap off) There are a lot of them: Usually shot and cut in such a confusing manner as to confound the Viewer. Many of those shots which aren't on shakeycam are composed in such an odd style that one can only assume Burns was trying - and failing - to emulate European-Period Welles (who also didn't have any money, but at least knew how to make films.) Script: 1/10 - Really very bad indeed. Construction-wise, it's all over the place with far too long spent on set-up (that is ultimately wasted), and long stretches with either too much or too little (but never just the right amount of) exposition. Dialogue is fairly standard Ladspeak, in that there is so much pointless swearing that Principles sound as though they're living with Tourettes; and what are intended (one imagines) as witty one-liners are either so laboured as to simply not work or delivered so poorly as to just lie there and die.
On the plus side, at least I can take consolation in the fact that the breakdown of society that will inevitably follow an attack from space will mainly involve a handful of extras charging around the Park Farm shopping centre and not really doing much damage at all.
There are a lot of these things appearing right now - I suspect that the cheapness and availability of digital technology has a lot to do with it - Cheapjack horrors (how many amateur zombie flicks have we see over the past few years?), comedies (everyone wants to have the next Sean of the Dead) and thrillers made by people who have seen a lot of movies, but probably not enough good ones. I guess it's just the 21st Century equivalent of Grindhouse.
An hour and a half of my life I'll never get back.
There are now two very, very bad films called "U.F.O". The first was a straight to video thing a few years back with Chubby Brown and now there's this: Filmed just down the road from me in Derby and Allestree by self-styled triple-hyphenate Domininc Burns. (Well, he can certainly Produce - he got this made, after all - but he evidently knows nothing of Writing or Directing.) I have no idea if there's a market for this sort of thing - a sort of alien invasion action fantasy filtered through a lad mag' sensibility - but I suspect it didn't cost very much at all (I'd guess the "£2.5 Million" is either pure hyperbole or else no-one was getting very good value for money on this shoot) and will probably go into profit purely on worldwide TV sales alone (where the inclusion of Mr Van Damme - in a cameo that actually amounts to a series of downright eccentric inserts - isn't going to hurt).
Performances: 2/10 - Particular humiliation is heaped upon veterans Julian Glover and Sean Pertwee in cameos - both of whom should have known better.
Visuals: 2/10 (One of those is for remembering to take the lens cap off) There are a lot of them: Usually shot and cut in such a confusing manner as to confound the Viewer. Many of those shots which aren't on shakeycam are composed in such an odd style that one can only assume Burns was trying - and failing - to emulate European-Period Welles (who also didn't have any money, but at least knew how to make films.) Script: 1/10 - Really very bad indeed. Construction-wise, it's all over the place with far too long spent on set-up (that is ultimately wasted), and long stretches with either too much or too little (but never just the right amount of) exposition. Dialogue is fairly standard Ladspeak, in that there is so much pointless swearing that Principles sound as though they're living with Tourettes; and what are intended (one imagines) as witty one-liners are either so laboured as to simply not work or delivered so poorly as to just lie there and die.
On the plus side, at least I can take consolation in the fact that the breakdown of society that will inevitably follow an attack from space will mainly involve a handful of extras charging around the Park Farm shopping centre and not really doing much damage at all.
There are a lot of these things appearing right now - I suspect that the cheapness and availability of digital technology has a lot to do with it - Cheapjack horrors (how many amateur zombie flicks have we see over the past few years?), comedies (everyone wants to have the next Sean of the Dead) and thrillers made by people who have seen a lot of movies, but probably not enough good ones. I guess it's just the 21st Century equivalent of Grindhouse.
An hour and a half of my life I'll never get back.
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