AE: Apocalypse Earth

"AE: Apocalypse Earth" is, unfortunately, a truly poor attempt at a post-apocalyptic sci-fi. The writing is severely lacking, and the acting - if one can even call it that - gives the impression that the cast was simply pulled off the street. Beyond the performances, the storyline itself is disjointed and uninspired, failing to create any compelling narrative. To make matters worse, the CGI is laughably bad, detracting significantly from any attempt at immersion.

Richard Grieco was the only actor I recognized, and while his performance was passable, the overwhelming lack of acting skill from everyone else, combined with the abysmal storyline and visual effects, ultimately dooms the movie. It's a production that fails to deliver on almost every front.

Save yourself the time and effort; do not waste your time on this one.

So you can best understand the title of this review, let me explain Thunder Levin's "Sharknado". The film features sharks that wait around for Pacific Ocean hurricanes to pick them up and deposit them in Southern California. It features a great deal of dry land shark attacks and even one shark that is able to climb a nylon rope.

Thank GOD none of that occurs in "AE: Apocalypse Earth". This movie starts with the Earth under attack by aliens and Noah's Space Ark leaving with some grouchy mercenary who just wants to get back to Earth. What no escape pod?

The effects are very poor CGI, so don't expect much there. The one- million dollar budget, must have been spent on the body spray for Bali Rodriguez. Most of the time, she is on screen makes me wonder, if they glued the bikini to her nipples. As much time as she spends in the water, they should have use water proof body paints.

The explosive crash of the ship makes you wonder how anyone survived without a scratch. There were other flaws, other than the acting, some geeky science that will make even the amateur star gazer laugh. When the crew from the two ships talk about their destinations. The first ship was heading to Alpha Centauri and they state that it has 3 star system but Alpha Centauri is a binary system with only two. The other group say they left for Barnard's Star and claim it is a binary system. Barnard's Star is a red dwarf star about six light-years away from Earth.

I caught this "Jane of the Jungle" epic on Netflix today. I guess it's not like I am out any real money. But I wouldn't expect anyone to enjoy watching this unless you are into low budget Tarzan movies.

I will get right to the point. IMDb states that the estimated budget for this film was $350,000. If that is correct, someone stuffed most of that cash in their pocket because it sure wasn't spent on real production costs.

This film has the look, feel, and sound of a film school project. The photography, cinematography, sound, sound effects, visual effects, and acting are so below par that it is hard to take this film seriously.

I could point out specifics but that would take much too long since there is very little about this film that actually works.

Basically, start at the beginning, the script; terrible. The actors; amateurs. The photography; shaky and uninspired. The direction; film school project that got a D.

Every time the Asylum releases a new movie, some pseudo film 'expert' declares it to be 'the worst movie ever made', 'scraping the bottom of the barrel', or some other such derogatory garbage. Well, none of these comments are true - what about the 50's B- Movies in which the alien was a man in a gorilla suit with a diving helmet on his head? Or 'Run For Your Wife'?

The truth is that the Asylum is expert at extracting the most movie from the least money, and no film illustrates this more than AE Apocalypse Earth. In 90 minutes it draws from Predator, Avatar and After Earth, utilising a decent lead man (Adrian Paul), passable CGI, exotic locations, and far from the worst script and direction I've seen, all for a budget not exceeding $1m.

Sure, it's never going to win any awards, and is best regarded as a 'Saturday night after a few drinks' kind of movie, but let's put an end to this Asylum-bashing. Let's see you do better!

(And remember this - the Asylum has never lost money on a movie. How many other studios can say that? I suspect none.)

That is saying very little however as After Earth was so poorly done, the worst movie personally seen so far this year with one of the worst ever child performances. As bad as it is though it is a masterpiece compared to the irredeemable dreck that is AE: Apocalypse Earth, one of those Asylum mock-busters that happens to "taking inspiration from" After Earth. AE: Apocalypse Earth is not quite down there with The Asylum's worst movies but it's in the lower end. If there is one glint of a redeeming quality it's some competent photography at the end. Visually, it is not good at all and that it's low-budget comes through loud and clear. The scenery is very dully rendered and lit, never once drawing us into the setting, while the special effects look as they were made last minute and that the makers ran out of time to properly finish them and the photography and editing in general are an eyesore. The music is generic and forgettable, sometimes derivative also of the score for After Earth(the least bad thing about that film), while the sound effects and quality are murky. The dialogue is often total gibberish, somebody really needs to check that what they're writing makes any kind of sense, and is cheesy and stilted as well. Seeing as this is The Asylum we're talking about, the lack of originality(not just After Earth, Predators and Avatar as well) is something you eventually have to accustom to- no matter how frustrating it is- but the story still fails to be exciting, emotionally investing or remotely interesting for that matter. Instead it is as plodding as the story for After Earth, has the same nonsense and questionable science you expect for the Asylum and any dramatic scenes are mawkish and forced. The characters are not memorable or likable in the slightest, a few are even annoying, the fact that levels of characterisation itself are next to non-existent is a large part of the problem. The direction is flat and characterless, and the acting is so bad from everybody involved it's not worth commenting on, ranging from bored-sounding to irritating. In conclusion, horrible from start to finish. 1/10 Bethany Cox