BEFORE: The chain is still alive, and it wouldn't be if I hadn't gone to Plan B back in the spring by dropping "The Warrior" and changing things up. Then I had to change things around again to get through the documentary chain - that one was my fault for making a mistake concerning the cast of "Life, Animated". So now it's not Plan B anymore either, I'm on like Plan "E" right now. To get my Perfect Year I've had to learn how to both stick to the plan, and also be flexible enough to change things up if I have to - finding the balance between those two attitudes can be difficult.
Boyd Holbrook carries over from "The Predator". I got lucky a second time with this one - I remembered seeing it in the cable TV on-screen listings, so when it popped up on Boyd Holbrook's IMDB page, and I knew that it also had Saoirse Ronan in it, I knew then it would connect back to my existing horror chain very easily - I just had to re-organize the whole October line-up so it would still end with one of the three films with John Malkovich in them. (Only two of those are still linked together now, but that's a small price to pay, if I have to re-structure at the last second and still end up exactly where I'd previously planned.)
THE PLOT: When an unseen enemy threatens mankind by taking over their bodies and erasing their memories, Melanie will risk everything to protect the people she cares about, proving that love can conquer all in a dangerous new world.
AFTER: And the best thing about this is that it's thematically on point, too - aliens invaded the Earth yesterday in "The Predator" (and last week in "Race to Witch Mountain") and here we go again, let's get all of these alien-attack films out of the way so I can get back to terrestrial monsters in a few days. But right off the bat, I've got an issue with the way this film started - we meet our characters at some point AFTER the invasion of the Earth. Now, it might have been a subtle invasion, I'll concede on that point - think more like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" than "The War of the Worlds". No flying saucers, no laser guns, no killer robots or space-dogs rounding up the humans. Instead these parasitic aliens were implanted into humans, which displaced the minds/souls of the humans, allowing the little creatures to worm their way into the human brains and take over their bodies. (If anything, this sort of copies the concept of Trills from "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", mixed maybe with the ideology of the Borg from "Next Generation" and "Voyager".)
But if you think about it, by starting the story after the invasion, we're missing some of the best bits, plus I have a lot of questions - how long did it take? When did the first alien arrive, and who implanted the first one? Was there a traitorous human that allowed the aliens to take over his body, or the body of someone he didn't like? Was it a completely peaceful takeover or was it fraught with difficulty? Did humans even get a chance to study the alien activity and fight back, like in "Independence Day"? All in all, it seems like a strange choice to start the story after the humans have already lost - what a bummer.
Ah, but there are still a few humans that haven't been assimilated yet, and that's who the story chooses to focus on. Actually the main character is Melanie, whose body has been taken over by an alien named "Wanderer", only the problem is that Melanie's brain, or soul, is still active in her head, and she's constantly fighting the process, and arguing with Wanderer. She can't really influence Wanderer's actions, she can only scream her dissatisfaction over everything, which essentially creates a split personality, or two brains in one body. Apparently these Seekers are used to taking over lifeforms on other planets with limited intelligence, and they aren't used to hosts that fight back and refuse to die. Welcome to Earth, bitches, we don't go down without a fight.
But as Wanderer sorts through Melanie's memories, we see flashbacks of her going on the run with her brother to avoid the aliens, and forming a relationship with Jared, another human hiding out. They lived together as something like a family unit for some time, and then there's a big story gap - like we never really find out how or why Melanie left that location and ended up getting captured by the aliens in human form. OK, I understand the reason for starting the story in the exciting middle part rather than the beginning, but when you show the flashbacks later on, you just HAVE to make sure that you bring us right up to the point where the film started. Otherwise, it's just going to feel like a big chunk is missing.
But Melanie/Wanderer come to an understanding of sorts, and together (?) they head out to the desert where Melanie's uncle has an underground (literally) enclave under a giant mesa or something. This bit was also very confusing - with the ability to read/share each other's thoughts, Wanderer accused Melanie of heading in the wrong direction, but was she really? What good would that have done her in the long run? She wanted to find her brother and boyfriend again, why wouldn't she head toward them, and how would she even be able to fool the alien in her head, if they're sharing the same brain? I'm so confused...
Things get even more confusing when they find the enclave of humans in the desert (and it's that special kind of desert, the one with a convenient underground river so nobody ever gets thirsty or has to go a week without bathing...) because even though Melanie gets re-united with her boyfriend, the Wanderer is attracted to a different human fugitive, I want to say... Ian? I don't know, at this point I couldn't tell Ian apart from Kyle, these actors all looked the same, like they're right out of the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog or something. Plus, a love triangle? Right in the middle of the alien invasion? Haven't they got more important things to deal with? What the hell is this, "Twilight"?
Umm, exactly. The first name that popped up in the end credits was Stephenie Meyer, the writer of the novel this is based on, and she also wrote the "Twilight" books. That makes SO much sense. NOTE: I've never seen the "Twilight" movies, but obviously they've been all over pop culture, so I know a few things about them. Those movies are on my list, because they're on Hulu now, but I'm not exactly rushing to watch them - maybe next October. And if I do, it will largely just be to get them OFF my list, but I think I still need some more time.
I kid you not, but the humans in the resistance realize that they're not going to defeat the aliens with hate, but they can be defeated...with love and acceptance. Pardon me while I barf. Did we defeat the evil Nazis in World War II with peace, love and understanding? No, we did not. The same should hold true for invading aliens - even ones that are so Socialist that they don't believe in money, if you need food you just go to the grocery store and get some, and there are no competing brands, no advertising, just generic products. That proves it, they're a threat to our way of life, they're monsters and they must be stopped, not welcomed into our society. Give me a goddamn break. So there are NO consequences for all the people that they killed, no war tribunal that puts the alien leaders on trial? Something is very, very wrong here.
Besides starting the storyline in the middle, I accuse this film of focusing on all the wrong things, and also of not having enough action in it. Yesterday's film was wall-to-wall action, and this one focuses more on debate and internal dialogue - except for a part where they use technology that looks like it came from Gwyneth Paltrow's line of GOOP products. If that's your thing, by all means, dig in and enjoy, but I just don't think it's the alien invasion film that we need right now. I know I fell asleep several times because it's not very exciting - look, my cable system doesn't even classify this as an action film or a horror film or even a sci-fi film, it only pops up under the "romance" category. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Also starring Saoirse Ronan (last seen in "Mary Queen of Scots"), Max Irons (last seen in "Woman in Gold"), Jake Abel (last seen in "Love & Mercy"), Frances Fisher (last seen in "House of Sand and Fog"), Chandler Canterbury (last seen in "Knowing"), Diane Kruger (last seen in "Welcome to Marwen"), William Hurt (last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), Scott Lawrence (last seen in "Danny Collins"), Rachel Roberts (last seen in "In Time"), Shawn Carter Peterson (last seen in "Pitch Perfect 2"), Lee Hardee, Raeden Greer, J.D. Evermore (last seen in "First Man"), Emily Browning (last seen in "Legend"), Mustafa Harris (last seen in "Deepwater Horizon"), Bokeem Woodbine (last seen in "Billionaire Boys Club"), Alex Russell (last seen in "Only the Brave").
RATING: 3 out of 10 cool chrome Lotus cars (ah, so THAT'S why the aliens came to Earth...)
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