Alien Reign of Man (2017) Reviews

• The worst of the worst - high school project gone wrong

  TheTopDawgCritic2017-08-13

  There are main factors when rating a film, and there's always the secondary factors that can also make or break a film that are not usually discussed. This will be the first time I will be addressing these on IMDb. Aside from most atrocious acting I have ever seen, the writing is next in line for that fail award. The directing and editing was terrible as was the score. The dialog was one of the worst I have seen. The pacing, unbearable. Was this a contest for the worst high school film made gets produced or something? Lets go even deeper. Costume design - wtf was with the coconut enhancements on the females suits? The makeup - was someone bored in that department? CGI - worst I've seen since CGI was created. SFX - see previous comment. Opening credits - "a vision of Justin Price"... is he blind? Only four actors, three also had other roles in making of this film, and failed in the acting and their respective departments. It does not get any worse than this and I'm pretty sure this is the worst film I have ever seen. Who funded this mess... did someone's dad need a tax write off? The only factor that was close to adequate in this film was some of the cinematography. If I could give this a zero I would. 1/10

• Unredeemably bad

  larryy2017-11-11

  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.

• Like sitting through a very poorly written and acted porn film, but without the sex.

  markhayeselectric2017-12-01

  Where to start...horrible writing, acting, directing and costuming. I would call it a fan made film, but that would be an insult to fan made films. I rent a lot of movies and quite often choose low budget films because they can be pleasantly surprising, good writing, interesting story line and decent acting don't necessarily require a multi-million dollar budget. However, aside from the location, there is nothing at all good about this film.

• This planet has dark matter

  nogodnomasters2017-12-13

  The opening is a bit confusing as there is no introduction as to what is happening until 20 minutes into the film, then you wish they would not have explained it. This is a low budget film I would classify as New Age science fiction. Seems the terminus virus has destroyed almost all the human life on Earth except a handful that are immune to it. It has also killed the grass, the ocean, the puppies, the mommies etc. Some of those immune to it are on the planet Demos, looking for a "spire" that contains dark matter that will jump start the spire on Earth and bring back the mommies and puppies. Humans don't beam down, but "phase" which is like beaming except it doesn't involve any special effects other than filming when someone is not there and then when they are in the scene. There is some drama within the group which demonstrated that script writer and directed Justin Price not only has no idea what is "dark matter"but also can not construct a dialogue that can hold one's interest. The acting and dialogue were horrific. And now for the plot spoiler, the spire signal device is activated by a copy of the Aztec calendar, most likely obtained at the same location Justin bought his Himalayan salt lamp to use in the film. Guide: no swearing, sex, or nudity

• The budget is not the problem with this film.

  MartinHafer2018-08-17

  Four super-soldiers, the Eternals, land on a weird planet and are there to fight alien creatures and then somehow activate a machine that will restore the Earth to its old glory. Apparently, the planet is a mess and these four are our last hope. I love how far we've come with computer generated graphics. Long ago, a great looking sci-fi film meant a huge budget for effects...and there was really no way around this. However, with the quality of computers and software increasing, it's amazing the sort of sci-fi that is being produced on shoestring budgets. Moon is probably the very best of the recent low-budget sci-fi, but Europa Report and Hunter Prey (with a budget under a half million dollars) are also really good looking and entertaining films you really ought to see. Because of this, I was excited to see Alien Reign of Man and I know that it potentially could be a great film even without a big-name cast and fancy effects. Sadly, this did not turn out to be the case....and the problem, surprisingly, wasn't so much the CGI but the script. A fundamental problem with Alien Reign of Man is the constant use of exposition to tell the story...which is just sloppy and took me out of the experience. Instead of telling the viewer that the Earth is on its last legs and the Four Eternals are our last hope in a prologue, the film literally has various characters start explaining this to each other...after much of the action has taken place. Plus, people do not talk this way to each other...ever. Or, perhaps the film could have slowly explained all this but instead significant portions of the dialog are spent having characters explaining to each other what is going on and why! As a result, the film is, dare I say it, rather boring. By the way, I am constantly on the lookout for good low-budget sci-fi and I would love to hear from you with your suggestions.