Taking 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...

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?

Ran across this while browsing Netflix...as one does. There are a lot of bad movies out there, this is not Killer Mermaid bad, but it's pretty close.

When you watch this film it'll be as though you're watching a badly dubbed Chinese flick from the 70's. The acting is atrocious, under- acted AND over- acted, it was as though the actors didn't know the language they where speaking at all. The cinematography is bland. There's awkward, badly done humor at very inappropriate times. The dialogue in general is lackluster.

The special effects are nice but stand out against the flat lighting, making them the brightest thing...which is usually a good thing...right? But not in this case. The camera that was used could have worked if there had been better lighting and maybe some more even color correcting done. The concept was good but was wasted.

Now to the positive. It is very difficult to create a feature film, especially when (judging only by the quality) it seems this is a group of people who didn't really know exactly what they where doing (I hope). Yet they all came together and created something. That's pretty darn cool and should be congratulated.

In 10 years this will be a film you'll not want anyone to remember because you'll have created things that are so much better. I look forward to that because, even though this is very bad, there is promise in the production team. Hopefully for the actors too, if they get a ton more acting lessons...they really, really need them...

All that being said I'll end with this:

Congratulations to all who put time and effort...and money into this. You have a completed project! Now go make better things!

And to everyone else, don't watch this one. Wait till their next thing comes out, it'll be better, hopefully.

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.