The Phoenix Incident

I have seen many found footage movies and some of them are quite good, as they 1. allow the viewer to get an idea of the whole scenery and 2. as they give your eyes some calm moments. The viewer needs time to understand what's actually going on!

This movies doesn't do anything of that. It's really hard work to watch the found footage scenes, so shaky, the image even switches off completely for many times, the cam crashes against walls and the ground with wild movements, a tour de force for your eyes, so much that it gets really annoying. I wanted to shout out loud: stop finally moving!

While the story could have been very exciting (the basic idea is not bad), the 4 main characters sometimes behave like crazy. Just imagine someone dangerous follows you in the dark. And your first reaction is: shout as loud as possible, speak loudly, use your torch to show everyone within the next 2 miles where you are, and that ALL the time.That's what these 4 guys do. So empathy has no chance to grow for them. After a while of watching I thought: just stop filming guys and get caught finally.

The pseudo-documentary style of the movie is OK, if you like that kind of movie. To me it's a little bit too much of history channel's "the secret alien files" kind of stuff: the camera, the editing, the light of the interview scenes - just the way those scenes are made I have seen before too many times on TV. The director clearly needs to find a way to make his individual kind of movie. Now it's just a collection of copied elements. Truly better than "sharknado", but not much better than every pseudo-documentary on TV.

This movie is making me noxious and gives me headaches because of the idiotic camera shakes.

It is not watchable.

And I am tired of those found footages movies.

I'm a UFO fanatic, so I went into this movie with a certain amount of joy to see something different. Granted, I didn't have high expectations, after all, we know that horror and faux-documentary movies are not usually very good, however, the execution of this one was much better than I expected. With a good budget and use of camera techniques, the creators managed to create a film that, despite not being a marvel of special effects, contains well-designed scenes with good entertainment value.

The script is a bit heavy-handed, leaving much to be desired, but it manages to establish certain real-life connections with fictional events in a good way, creating a sort of historical universe within its own limits. The characters are, for the most part, typical cliché examples of movies of this type, but I've seen worse so I cut them some slack. The performances are decent, not the best, but what else can we expect?

Probably what I hated the most was the idiotic subplot about the alien-crazy guy. I found it unnecessary, cliche, redundant and even a bit cringe-worthy, mainly because it didn't add anything interesting to the scene and only served as a sort of punching bag of mysteries.

In the end, it's a short, entertaining movie that manages to combine real scenes with cinematic scenes and creates a somewhat interesting conspiracy story, which although affected by its delirious script and half-developed characters, manages to entertain for 1 hour and 20 minutes without major complaints. Also, the aliens and the development of the scenes is entertaining, as well as the multiple scenes from the POV of the military. It's worth it if you like the genre and feel like killing time.

The Phoenix Incident starts off nicely, inspired by actual phenomena and using mockumentary approach to cover the issue. Characters, both from recording and supposed interviews, are relatively convincing. This is one of the better groups seen in found footage genre that audience can easily invest on. Unfortunately, persisting problem of jerky cam, cumbersome editing and frantic off screen view are dominant. One or two might be bearable, but the culmination of them all eventually hampers the movie.

This mockumentary is a collection of tapes surrounding the event of alleged alien or UFO sighting back in 1997. It follows the group of young men as its main plot and then displays the accounts reflecting back to the fated night as well as possible cover up. Most cast of this type are random journalists or awkward family, this one has better on-screen characters, at least before the screaming and blabbering start.

They seem believable as a group of friends, they may fumble with occasional juvenile antic, but a decent cast goes a long way to give a sense of realism, which is the goal of found footage genre. The interview scenes also present air of seriousness, be it may the whistleblowing dialogue or the eyewitnesses accounts.

However, the transition is poor and the camera work is abysmal. For guys whose hobby is filming, these on-screen characters are not handy with camera. This shaky cam can be disruptive, especially towards the latter half where the events are revealed. The movie shows some special effects, presentable yet only a few seconds each.

The movie shows promise early on, but just like many before it, the intrusive shaky cam and awful editing ruin it.

I really had high hopes for this movie as I had just watched Phoenix Forgotten and I thought maybe this would be as interesting or even better... But it's not even close. There are too many technical errors and storytelling errors to enjoy it.

Things that I found were wrong with this movie:

-The classic footage is not 4:3 and the aging effect is not realistic -The characters aren't interesting -While filming the Phoenix Lights they suddenly start filming themselves instead of the UFO sighting. Who would actually do that? -The aliens are bad CGI and look like the xenomorph from the 'Alien' movies -The news channels have names that don't make sense, very unconvincing -There are too many camera angles. Also too many cameras in Gayson's place. Why does he have all those security cameras? Also it's 1997! -Gayson's theories and everything he says doesn't fit the movie. There is some Heaven's Gate mixed in ("recycling the Earth", the bunk beds in his compound, the portrait of the Alien is the exact same that 'Do' from Heaven's Gate had and don't look anything like the aliens in the movie) and it all doesn't fit the movie because the aliens aren't even trying to get them alive, they for no reason seem to kill them and then take them, and they are not stealthy at all at doing it. -One of the guys shuts the trunk in a hurry and leaves a camera in the trunk?

There are so many things in this movie that don't make any sense. If you're gonna watch a found footage Phoenix Lights movie, watch the 2017 Phoenix Forgotten. It's way more enjoyable and has character development.