Battle Invasion

For every interpretation of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" — from the radio broadcast and the movies, to the TV series — one could safely rely on consistency: interesting, if not always likable protagonists bearing witness to the near extinction of humanity at the three-fingered hands of aliens motoring around in tripod war machines firing death rays with a distinctive "pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew" sound. In fact, no matter how each version changed with location, hero or narrative device, the ray guns and tripods have been mandatory (often, using the same sound effects Byron Haskin's created for the 1953 movie). And just as consistently, every movie and TV producer since has as least acknowledged H.G. Wells' in a story credit.

That is, until Neil Johnston dropped this steaming pile of dark matter onto our planet. Perhaps that's just as well. Why besmirch a great legacy with this amateurish entry?

In a jumble of styles — which simply HAS to include some found-footage video journalism — the writer/director lifts from a variety of other sources as well. Most obviously, Dawn of the Dead, and the 1984 version of Red Dawn. Perhaps the only redeeming quality is including the word "Dawn" in the title, so the viewer might mistake this as some kind of homage.

You might think that despite the crushing familiarity of the material, you could find a morsel of entertainment. Perhaps you have a fondness for cheaply-rendered 3D and quickly executed After Effects. But if you love clumsy hack writing, this is the movie for you. Betraying even less skill with dialog than he does with with plagiarizing plot, the director creates a world of bickering, unlikeable morons you don't care anything about. And they're often sputtering ill-considered truisms from other films. For example, after one character theorizes that the invading aliens are changing our terrestrial environment to suit their biological needs, a key character solemnly - and unironically - declares, "It's called 'Terraforming.'" Indeed. And Alien Dawn isn't the product of film-making, but rather "movie-forming."

I'm only 7 minutes into this War of the Worlds and Star Wars ripoff and my eyes and ears can't take much more. The flashbang, choppy editing or whatever it is that is causing my screen to flicker with every explosion and the jumbled together Star Wars sound effects has me on the verge of cutting myself to make it through. The acting is horrendous. If the makers would have put half as much money into the plot and some decent actors instead of CGI-ing the hell out of everything, then maybe I would have rated it a 4. I only gave it a 2 (instead of a 1) because I applaud anyone who can go out and get a movie produced and marketed (no matter how crappy it may be). This one is to be avoided like the plague. If the CGI, plot, acting and editing would have been better, then I would recommend it...but alas, I cannot. Better luck next time guys (if there is a next time).

Every bit of this movie is clichéd and brought nothing new to the genre or made for a gratifying evening in with pop-corn in-tow. The acting is terrible, granted the sfx not bad for a B-grade movie, and the most positive aspect of this movie. It's interesting they show news broadcasts and video feeds and intersperse it into the drama, but for me me this failed to drum up any suspense or emotion when I was watching this movie.

I couldn't really relate to any of the characters and found myself becoming impatient as I watched on. It was a 1:20hr movie, but it felt like 3Hrs! I think what I'm trying to say is that there isn't much of a plot. Most of the idea's have been taken from War of the Worlds, Battle Los Angeles and many other movies. All of which executed the drama, suspense much better.

Not the worst movie I've seen this year, but lacks drive.

Up till now, the accepted gold standard for the worst film ever made has been Plan Nine from Outer Space, directed by the incomparable Ed Wood.

But I'm here to tell you all that Neil Johnson has surpassed Mr. Wood with his Sci-Fi epic, Alien Dawn.

I've never posted anything on IMDb before, but I felt that the magnitude of the awfulness of this film had to be addressed.

Oh, and the reviewers who gave it 4 and 5 stars?

Really? Seriously?

One guy even said, "I've seen a LOT worse in the 'War of the Worlds' genre than this."

Please! Be serious! Some people rely on this site for guidance when renting movies. I downloaded the thing off the net for free and I STILL feel robbed.

So...ever hear of Neil Johnson? Me neither. He's the producer and director of this film, and one day he thought "You know, I think I can make the movie, War of the Worlds, that Steven Spielberg made. Yeah! That's the ticket!" And so he did. Of course, his budget was not quite as big as Spielberg's, so he had to cut corners here and there, like in script writing, actors' salaries, special effects, etc. No Tom Cruise in this flick. Oh, and yeah, he kind of likes some TV shows too, like Walking Dead, or even Lost. So he thought an aliens-invade-earth-to-eat- mankind kind of movie might be better with some video-shot footage of people, you know, kind of talking about how they feel about, well, being invaded and devoured. But, I think Mr. Johnson needs more practice and he should try again in, say, 50 years.