20140202: SciFi Review--Alien Dawn

Alien Dawn

1. Production Fundamentals; Reception
1. American live action feature length film, 2012, rated R, 80 minutes, SciFi.
2. IMDB: 2.4/10.0 from 579 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 1.85 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' 0% liked it from 19 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.5/5.0 from 56,456 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by Neil Johnson.
6. Starring:  Rachelle Dimaria as Marissa J. McKellen, Alex Bell as Anders Kaczynski, Michael Abruscato as Roger Kaczynski, Cynthia Martin as Joni Mitchell, Tiffany Adams as Sera Michaels, Tiffany Martin as Tiffany Lewis, Marc Zicree as Brad Raybury.


2. Setup, Plot
1. Aliens invade the SW USA.  They make sounds like 1950s aliens, most specifically, the sounds in War of the Worlds, 1953.


2. Characters named Brad Raybury and Joni Mitchell?  Good grief.


3. Soon enough, the story centers on survivors are Marissa, Anders, and Roger, with no resources to speak of, and no plans.  They have long arguments about what food is common, and what is not.  These folks are pointless.  They care more about bickering than about surviving.  Later they join up with Sera and Tiffany.


4. This is a tough one.  Should I root for the powerful, effective aliens or the feckless, lame moronic humans?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Full of sound and fury, signifying less than nothing.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 2/10 Some of it is bad; much of the rest is really bad.  The found footage parts were as atrocious as expected.


2. Sound: 2/10 Terrible.  Leveling was done by someone who hates audiences. 


3. Acting: 0/10 Terrible.  All the performances. All the characters are unlikeable.  There are too many absurd arguments about ridiculous non-issues.  If one is going to have a mostly eastern European cast, why not film in eastern Europe to save money?


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Very stupid dialog.  Rips off War of the Worlds and Skyline rather openly. The depictions of ultimate stupidity (Woman asks for water. Man forces a cup of bleach down her throat.  Man gets excited; does not know why the woman is suddenly in acute distress.) were fairly convincing.  How are such lame, incompetent people to make any progress against the aliens?  Cell phones work during this invasion?  Not for long. The military hands out heavy weapons to civilians?  Nope.


5. SFX: 0/10 Incredibly bad. One of the worst jobs I have ever seen, beginning to end.