The Anomaly

Noel Clarke fancied himself as an action star. No worries, he also produces, directs and co-writes The Anomaly as well as starring in it.

This means we see him kick butt in some action scenes as well as showing of his muscular body in the nude.

The Anomaly is a low budget sci-fi action film set in the near future. Ryan Reeve (Noel Clarke) wakes up in a van to find himself trapped with a boy pursued by a man in a tweed suit. It looks like Reeve is the kidnapper.

Reeve is the victim of a mind control plot by a controversial doctor. Reeve has about 10 minutes to put things right. If he dies or goes over that time, the scenario resets.

The film is Jason Bourne meets Memento. It even has a prostitute with a heart.

The film has a confusing and unconvincing first half. It is a derivative movie that gets better in its second half.

As Clarke found fame in the relaunch of Doctor Who, he should had worked more on the sci-fi elements.

Noel Clarke thinks he's Will Smith, turns out he isn't.

This is a poor, predictable, sci-fi romp which appears to be an excuse for Noel to be the tough but sensitive guy at every opportunity. All the major plot lines are here; convenient snippets of information learned by the 'hero' through the film, dead wife (for no apparent reason), acts a tough guy while on a mission to save a child, the only woman to appear more than once falls in love with him, last minute twist, it just goes on and on, and on.......*yawn*

You can't help but think that Noel had to direct the film too because no-one but Noel could make Noel such a hero.

It's an Anomaly alright. I do like the idea behind this (though it's not entirely new and fresh, it's a nice take), but it gets muddled throughout. The "science" behind it seems to have quite a few gaps (no pun intended). Noel Clarke seems to want to much at once. The almost 10 minutes thing is a nice touch, but it doesn't work out always (not sure if they ever planned on having all the sections running the exact time window they establish, might have been interesting and very challenging).

Whatever the case, a couple of things do not seem to work (like planting and seeding, "What else is there to do? - actually a couple of things, like re-writing the script or at least re-defining it). It works almost as it is, but there could be more, even without explanations (or longer/shorter time frames here and there). Not to mention location findings and such ... Could've been worse, could've been better - coincidences aside

After seeing the movie and reading the reviews I can say that some comments are fair to this film. The premise is very much lifted from Total Recall and Memento with an amnesiac finding out who he is and why he's in the locations he wakes up in. The movie really falls apart as it really should have been produced on a much bigger budget. Doing this on a small budget results in little sets, sparse actors & extras plus limited CGI. This results in the audience being constantly underwhelmed by scenarios and situations that should really be a wow factor. Fight scenes for example seem to be there mostly to fill time and are slowed down for supposed effect but really they show just poor choreography.Noel is not actually a very good actor to be fair so this is more a vanity project as another reviewer pointed out. The ending of the movie was very trite and clumsy but to be honest, a lot of the movie was that. To summarise, a big budget movie done on a small budget results in the feeling of being let down.

Clever film but really novice fight scenes in slow motion