Occupation: Rainfall

Plenty of action and special effects but the storyline is a confusing mess. Don't buy all the high ratings 4 is about right.

I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark on the big screen and it was one of the most glorious and spectacular cinematic experiences in my lifetime. To see these classics on the big screen just makes me happy and it's one of the greatest and most finely executed blockbusters that never gets old. Almost immediately after that, I watched Occupation: Rainfall... it became a reminder as to why I'm frustrated by today's modern blockbusters.

The only thing that's worth complimenting about Occupation: Rainfall is that it's an Australian effort to make a regional blockbuster and I'm interested to know the budget and filmmaking process behind the film. There's clearly a larger budget than the first film and Occupation: Rainfall presents itself as an ambitious sequel so it's going all out with what it has and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't impressed by the overall efforts... but crikey, it's about as dumb and irritating as a Hollywood blockbuster, and just because it's a bigger film doesn't mean it's better.

Occupation: Rainfall is visually unpleasant viewing from start to finish. It wants to be a visual spectacle, but it suffers largely from an overabundance of terrible CGI, poor lighting and lens flares, and noticeable green screen. Accompanied by a generic score and overwhelmingly loud sound design that can make dialogue incomprehensible, it's a technical mess. It also has editing so irritating that it gave me Resident Evil: The Final Chapter flashbacks, particularly in one action sequence towards the climax. The action does have entertainment value and I did enjoy it... whenever it was clear and comprehensible (that was rare) and I had more fun counting the jumpcuts in my mind.

While Occupation: Rainfall was never going to be great story-wise, it's also boring. Some of the dialogue is awful, the characterisations feel thin and the storytelling reeks of a generic nature, but where the writing tremendously fails is in its attempts to craft emotion. The emotional beats felt like unearned attempts to create audience investment and at the same time, it awkwardly injects comic relief that proves more to be distracting than unfunny, causing Occupation: Rainfall to suffer from tonal inconsistencies. Most of the performances fall flat to the point of being forgettable, but I was especially disappointed to see Jason Isaacs wasted in a terrible voice role and Ken Jeong deserves better comic material than what he's given. It's a blockbuster full of so many sci-fi clichés and ill-judged decisions that it led me to wonder how this got made. And knowing that the first movie played at only 16 cinemas and made $35,111 from a $6 million budget, it seems a third movie will be inevitably greenlit. And that's hinted by the atrocious cliffhanger ending, which is desperate to create a new Australian film franchise and go Full Hollywood on us.

Watching movies like Occupation: Rainfall mostly shows what's wrong with modern blockbusters. While I'll admit I'm impressed by the production values, some of the action and the overall ambition put into the direction, they all led to a safe and painfully generic end result that doesn't have much heart and it fails when it comes to both the technical and storytelling elements.

Plot and Characters (2/10) Presentation and Direction (4/10) Acting (4/10) Script (2/10) Setting/Locations (4/10) Tone/Action (4/10) Cinematography/Visuals (4/10) Sound/Music (4/10) Editing (2/10) Pacing/Length (2/10)

Score: 32/100.

LIKES: +Ambitious production values +Some entertainment value in the action

DISLIKES: -Flat, wasted performances -Generic story relies on safe clichés and unearned emotion -Uninteresting, thin characters -Messy visuals and editing -Irritatingly loud sound design -Slightly overlong runtime, boring pacing

Wanted to like this film but can't for the life of me understand how it rates here as well as it does. Started well but soon deteriorates into a chaotic mess. Most of the effects and live action sequences are confused and lack impact. The performances are amateurish to acceptable. Over long and still there is "Chapter 2!" - Makes one appreciate "Beyond Skyline".

This isn't 10 stars nor is i 1 star - so ignore those reviews. If you saw the first movie then you are getting nothing better than that. The acting is quite poor as is the camera work. Just know it's 2 hours and a bit and it never quite gets any good at all.

Australians can make impressive movies (go see The Dry) but this one is a bit embarrassing and shouldn't be in cinemas, should have gone straight to Netflix

Current IMDB score of 5.4 is not too far away from the mark. I'd say it's around 4 to 5.5ish if I really push it. It's a very generic sci fi flick that doesn't aspire to be something greater or deeper than your typical shoot em up where all aspects of the story are skimmed through so you aren't really invested in any of them except staring at action scenes after action scenes.

Out of everything I thought the coolest thing was the alien queen's armor. Some parts of CGI were well made but it was generally inconsistent and towards the poorer side. I think with a budget of 25 million AUD they could've done better, perhaps take out a few action scenes but flesh out the rest and of course the script. But I enjoyed it nevertheless as I knew what to expect.