Big Earth

Every once in a while you run into a "B Budget" movie that is soooooooo bad, it's actually kind of good, in a weird cult following way. Evil Alien Conquerors comes to mind... so bad, Tori Spelling played "Jan" but wasn't even credited... Taking Earth doesn't even reach this category. I don't know who had the rich, South African Daddy bank rolling this steaming turd...

I don't even have the words to describe how bad this movie is. It's like if "god-awfully horrible" and "threwup in my mouth a little" got together and had a child... but a child that had radiation poisoning, dipped in acid, and struck by lightening. And its not that its just that bad.. but it goes on and on for an hour and 40 minutes. I see that most of the cast isn't giving their name - that's probably a good idea. Now they just need to hide for a few years and hope no one sees this movie and recognizes them.

From time to time, there will be a special effect spectacle, linked together by characters in unlikely situations explaining the story line via stilted dialogue. Scenes are cut together oddly, such as characters being pursued in a crowded city at night, then we suddenly see them in broad day light in a rural setting. The cast perform like people collected at random and given dialogue to recite a moment before the single take used to capture the scene. There were a couple of quality props, but over all the production communicated a lack of budget. I felt I had to give it a 2 out of 10 because the images were in focus and the sound quality was good. There was nothing compelling about the story. None of the characters were developed to the point where anyone would care about them. Hopefully everyone was paid well to create this mess of a movie.

Not "so bad it's funny", not "so bad it's good". Not even the right kind of bad for MST3K. It's just terrible script, acting, makeup, etc. The director should be kicked out of the guild. The actors should be banned from SAG-AFTRA. The only people involved that probably pulled their weight are the camera operators, foleys, caterers, and location scouts. Poor casting deserves criticism but the performances and signing off on the script falls on the director. WTF were they thinking?

Since Netflix continues to try and camouflage its "bad movie" stash (by getting rid of star ratings), it's hard to know what you're wading into. Anyway, I figured this was an Asylum rip off of something. Lo and behold, I ran into something much, much worse.

I raised the white flag at about 18 minutes, which I thought was pretty sporting of me.

This is the worst movie I've seen this year. By quite a bit. This will appeal to a small subset of "so bad it's good" viewers, so if you appreciate low skill and even lower budget, this might not be too bad. The script has some howlers in it. The "actors"....hahahahaha.

Let this one go by and watch Battlefield Earth instead if you have to watch a crappy Sci-Fi film. That one's more fun.