Rating: B
Dir: Yuen Fai Ng
Star: Louis Koo, Ching Wan Lau, Carina Lau, Philip Keung
Goodness, everything is a cliché. Even the clichés. The dialogue and characters have the depth and complexity that you’d expect to find printed on the side of a crisp packet. A cheap crisp packet. So I wouldn’t blame you for switching over to something else, the weather channel perhaps, within the first dozen minutes. I very nearly did.
Except… …well, yes, so it’s silly, formulaic, and without any characters hewn from anything other than thin card. Except… …okay, the story, set in a not quite Blade Runner hyper-city, is typical ecogeddon fare and so utterly vacuous as to be largely irrelevant. And yet… …it is somehow likeably stupid and silly and binary and bouncy and energetic. Yeah, likeable.
It’s also tense enough, well paced, claustrophobic, urgent and very trite and hugely derivative. Still, at least they stole from the best and did it brazenly and well. So it should come as no surprise that at the 36 minute mark a small scared snivelling child arrives (don’t worry, she’s saluting like a proper Newt trooper in the very next scene), along with some definitely not Predators and a load of ‘not at all’ Alien monsters, and some definitely not advanced face-huggers.
The SFX are good, and capably provide plenty of decent ‘OMG’ moments along the way.
“You cannot die… you haven’t fixed my watch yet!!”
The dialogue however is so flat, barely even 2D, so trite, such silly puerile stuff, that it’s really not worth anyone’s time. Nope. No way. N’uh-huh no! I’m not watching this for a second longer. Definitely n…
“We must finish this mission!!”
It’s good looking, with a little bit of (not) ED209 thrown in too and, as the do-or-die mission unfolds, it is to no-one’s surprise that we discover that the combat team, who have been sent in to neutralise the extraterrestrial rain-eating ‘Audrey’, may well on the receiving end of a double-cross. Son be a dentist. People will pay you to be inhumane. Sorry, where was I… oh, yeah… in other news, Audrey, if left to his/her own devices would not only destroy the city but also solve the global climate crisis nearly overnight, and in so doing would remove the need for SkyNet (I’ve given up saying ‘not’, okay?).
“Don’t call me if things go wrong!!”
Is this a great film? Hell no! Is it good? Erm. No. Not really. It is however an enjoyable and engaging romp of a movie that is both fun and terribly easy to watch.
“Please don’t leave!!”
Did I mention Iron Man yet? Iron Man doing parkour? Yes it’s wholly derivative, wonderfully silly and really very very well done.
Did I mention Captain America yet? And an alternate use for dustbin-lids?
“I am the SkyNet!!”
And if that line makes you wince or groan then, save yourself, and do not watch the film. Should however it make you smile, or merely grimace, then do give it a go.
Did I mention Transformers?
Did I mention Speed?
Did I mention Avatar?
Did I mention Robocop?
So!! The, to the end!! Well, whilst paying homage to the !!dialogue!!, the end is as trite and formulaic as the rest!! And it’s a fun diversion for the time it plays!! The Plot?! C’mon now, it’s utterly irrelevant!!
Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable B!!