Happy Good Friday everyone! I hope everyone who celebrates has a good weekend and a Happy Easter. And for those who don’t celebrate, well I just wanted to tell you that you’re wonderful and I love you. Anyway, I figured I would review a nice happy movie that highlights the good in mankind and how….what’s that….Life is actually a horror movie about an alien that can kill all of us…oh…..well…I guess I’ll review that.

Story: In an alternate future (OR THE ACTUAL FUTURE!!!!?!?), a few lucky individuals are sent to the ISS to study a probe from Mars and to find out once and for all if life exists beyond earth. Well spoiler alert, they find life and it ain’t happy. In fact, it gets pissed off and goes on a murder spree. The story here is nothing out of the ordinary (which isn’t a bad thing), but is presented in an odd manner. For 30 minutes, they go along as if the alien isn’t going to be an evil murderous monster and act as if it could be the friendly martian from Superman comics (which is extra strange because all the trailers for this movie clearly show the alien killing and trying to kill everyone). Finally, the ending is disappointing. I was expecting it to be ambiguous and thought provoking but instead chooses to flat out tell you what happens, leaving nothing to imagination. All in all, what we have here is an interesting premise but poor execution (and writing).

Acting: The acting here is ok. No more. No less. Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson are the stars (ha) of the show here and they aren’t very imaginative. They certainly have their moments but are mostly forgettable. Ryan Reynolds is also here and is quite good but (for reasons I won’t go into) can’t really help much the movie much.

Presentation: Here’s the saddest part. This movie doesn’t look good. It had many opportunities to show some radical shots of the ISS and Earth and space in general but instead chooses something that looks like old stock footage from NASA. Plus the monster doesn’t even look cool. It just looks like a blob. A floating blob. A floating blob in space. A dumb floating blob in space.

Effect: Horror movies should be scary. Shocking I know. What a startling revelation. This movie is technically a horror movie but, hate to break it , this movie isn’t scary. Like not at all. Even the jump scares are pathetic. This movie could’ve been something good but between poor writing and mediocre acting, it just falls flat.

Other: At least the movie isn’t long. It could’ve been longer. That would’ve been bad. So I guess it gets some brownie points there but it can’t really save this hot mess.

I used to be a big horror fan. I watched horror movies all the time with my dad as a kid (yeah I know…my dad took me to some films that kind messed me up for a bit…#ANightmareOnElmStreet) but in recent years I just can’t get into the bigger horror films because, just like this one, they are bad. An interesting idea, maybe, but overall bad.

Story: 6
Acting: 6
Presentation: 5
Effect: 3
Other: 7

Score: 5.4

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