Alien: Reign of Man

Worst writing and direction I've seen in a film in quite a while. Some of the acting was dreadful too, but if the actors had been given a coherent script, with actual dialogue, and something to do besides stare off into space, apparently enraptured by the special effects, some of them might have risen to the occasion.

The FX were decent in places. That's the best thing I can say about the film.

Rather than engage in anything resembling actual conversation the actors were forced to spew plot points. And what little plot there was was disjoint and banal. There were exchanges like... A: "The Order has known of this for some time." B: "The order stole my childhood." A: "The atmospheric parameters are bad." B: "I'm not sure what to do." A: "We'll torture you unless you comply." Really. The "dialogue" just jumps around randomly, while the actors stand almost perfectly still. Astonishingly bad. Oh yeah, one of the actors actually said "You could have got us caught, captured, or killed!" Care to explain the difference between "caught" and "captured" for me? Sheesh. There was also one attempt at poetic speech that came out something like "Floating rock blood." (That's not an actual quote, but the actual line was at least as nonsensical.)

I almost always watch movies to the end, no matter how bad, but I only made it through about 1/3 of this and just had to turn it off. It made my brain hurt and was wasting too much of my life.

On the plus side some elements were well done, like some of the uniforms, planets, while other costumes were really bad. Budget problems maybe? Scenes were well lit while most movies choose almost complete darkness so that was nice.

Yeah the CGI were not all the high end, big budget, type but I liked that. Creatures seemed more alien in movement and they actually looked alien. I'm pretty tired of the high end big budget effects which seem all the same and alien creatures move, act and sound like regular earth creatures. So points for monster creation.

On the negative side, slow...everything. I didn't notice any character development. I couldn't guess what the movie was about.

To be fair I could only make it through the first 25%. Watched on YouTube so I was able to increased play speed 2x and enjoyment was greatly improved. Couldn't understand the dialogue but don't think I was missing anything and I could make up my own.

I did not know about this movie's existence when I happened to find it while browsing through the sci-fi section of movies. And reading the synopsis for the movie, I can't really claim to be overly thrilled, but I still decided to give the movie a chance, in order to branch out and watch more sci-fi than I usually get around to do.

Well, I suppose that "Alien Reign of Man" was hardly the best of choices for doing so, as it was a very bland and uneventful movie, that trotted on in a very monotonous pace and offering very little in terms of entertainment and storyline.

The CGI used in the movie was a mixed result; some of it actually looked fair and good enough, while other effects were just downright abysmal to look at, and makes you wonder just how something that obviously fake makes it past the editing table.

As for the characters in the movie, well let's just say that they are one-dimensional and that they are effectively faceless and pointless drones delivering equally pointless dialogue. I assume that this was the fault of writer/director Justin Price, because the actors and actresses seemed to actually be doing fair enough jobs with the limitations imposed on them by the lack of a proper script and storyline. This was the first time that I have seen the actress Khu in a movie, and I must admit that she really carried this movie single-handedly with her performance, just a shame that the movie turned out as bad as it did.

I will say that they found some fairly good locations for shooting the movie, as there is a pseudo-otherworldly feel to the scenery. And spiced up with some CGI, it just works all the better in favor of the movie.

The costumes in the movie were actually quite alright, so thumbs up for the wardrobe and costume design. "Alien Reign of Man" was a very weak addition to the sci-fi genre, and it hardly made any impact at all as it came and went without stirring a ruckus. If you make it through the movie the first time around, it is highly doubtful that you will actually take the time or the effort to sit down and watch it a second time around.

What a horrific waste of time!,boring and pointless with ridiculous looking aliens and disgracefully poor acting and dialogue.I paid £3 for it and wish id bought a suicide pill with the money instead,taking that would have been far less painful than watching this crap.

Films involving aliens admittedly do spark my interest and there are some fun ones out there, and some obvious masterpieces (won't name them at the risk of sounding unfair). Low-budget alien films on the most part do not have a good reputation and it is not hard to see why with most of them being intelligence insulting and making one seriously question how much effort went into it.

While far from the worst case, compared to the attempts especially made by SyFy and The Asylum (and a couple of others), 'Alien Reign of Man' does nothing to convert my general negative feelings on low-budget alien films. It's an incredibly bad mess and came incredibly close to having no redeeming qualities because of how much it does wrong and in a way that's jaw-droppingly awful. Oddly enough though there were a couple of small things that just about stopped it from falling into that category.

'Alien Reign of Man' is saved from total doom by the photography, even if far from exceptional, having some atmosphere and skill and actually not making me nauseous.

There is the odd fair costume and a few effects that look as if effort was made into them.

However, they are completely eclipsed by everything else being so dreadfully done. 'Alien Reign of Man' has a very drab look, and that a vast majority of the costumes are shoestring budget and that the rest of the effects are at best afterthought-looking pathetic further cheapen it, which makes the effort that went into the photography a waste. Editing was choppy too.

The music is too loud, very annoying and doesn't fit with the atmosphere at all, actually sounding like it was written for something else. The sound effects are bizarre and muffled, which does affect the dialogue and the balance between that and the sound. The dialogue is extremely stilted and without any bite, intrigue or urgency. That is when it is comprehensible, unfortunately most of the time it is not.

Something that affects the story coherence too. Further bad news for a story that's already paper thin, slow as molasses (and that is an insult to molasses) and well overdone on the ridiculousness. The characters are like robots in personality and have nothing interesting or distinguishable about them. The direction is pancake-flat.

While the actors are not entirely to blame, they throughout, and without exception, look as unfamiliar and indifferent to the material (characters and dialogue) as the viewer is.

Overall, a couple of small redeeming qualities but generally a big mess. 2/10 Bethany Cox