2 days ago, my wife got the invitation to the press screening of this movie. As usual, we were always excited to go for a special screening (or press screening) of a new movie released in Indonesia since we would get the opportunity to see them earlier. However, this time it was a bit strange as the screening was held on the same day of its premiere date on 10 April 2019. But anyway, we were still enthusiastic to see this one at CGV FX Sudirman. And after a seemingly long time of preparation and tons of advertisements and few trailers, finally the movie started at 7.30 pm (quite far behind schedule of 7 PM according to the invitation). OK, let us go on with the movie now.
Brief Story Line
9 years after alien invasion in 2019, the world had been in the control of Legislators (aliens representative on earth). Some people who were part of a resistance group called Phoenix tried to fight against the aliens in their "lair" underground called Closed Zone, though they mostly were unsuccessful. A young man named Gabriel (Ashton Sanders - The Equalizer 2 etc) who lived in the city of Pilsen had been wanting to get away from being harassed by Chicago police chief Mulligan (John Goodman - Kong: Skull Island, Atomic Blonde etc) who suspected Gabriel to be involved with Phoenix where his deceased older brother Rafe (Jonathan Majors - White Boy Rick) was a part of.
Mulligan always suspected that Phoenix group was still active and wanted to finish them. He would sometimes go to see a prostitute (Vera Farmiga - The Commuter, The Judge etc) for certain purpose. Meanwhile, his suspicion was apparently called for since there was indeed a new plan by Phoenix to attack the Legislators. And when several of the "sleeping agents" of Phoenix were activated, the plan to launch the attack had been initiated.
So how would the story proceed? Find them all in this alien invasion sci fi thriller movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Well this movie had a really superb start. The early scene was quite shocking and gave us the impression that it would be like that throughout the movie. But later the story was done in a slow manner and made me personally wonder what the movie was all about. Then it started to pick up after around half hour, especially when we found out there was going to be an attack on the aliens. The preparation for the attacks was quite suspenseful and pretty entertaining.
This is indeed not your usual kind of alien invasion movie where people always fight against alien from beginning till end. The category of sci-fi thriller was pretty close to what I felt about the film. It was more like a thriller movie with the bad guys just happened to be aliens. Do not be mistaken though, the aliens here despite not too much shown, but when they did appear, their presence were really felt by us. The way they attack and especially the sound effects and their creepy voices when communicating were awesome. The special effects were pretty decent and not the real spectacular type which was understandable considering it was kind of small budgeted movie. But as I said, the sound effects were fantastic. I got to admit the studio where we had the screening had outstanding sound system and there were even few times where my wife jumped a bit from her seat due to the shocking sound effects.
As a movie with 110 minutes duration, the early part might not be to the expectation of audience. I noticed one or two people who might be bored, playing their handphones during those times. But I would recommend that if you see this movie, you have to be patient as some of the details shown were quite important for us to understand the ending. And to me and my wife, the ending was the cream of the crop, the part where it was worth it to see through the whole movie. This time my wife and I did not realize the movie's intention till almost the very end. It was definitely nice that we could still be surprised by a movie. I likened this with some of M. Night Shyamalan's works, though probably not up to his best standards yet. I also believe that John Goodman's performance in here was wonderful. The director Rupert Wyatt who previously directed Rise of the Planet of the Apes did good job in providing the great ending, despite the early a-bit-too-slow pacing.
Overall my wife and I did enjoy this movie, even if the screening was not on time as promised and the studio was very hot. But the great sound system and the surprising ending really satisfied us. It might not be to general audience standard for alien invasion story, so people have to realize that this is a sci-fi thriller movie with a twist and the aliens were more like background rather than the main focus. If you are fans of alien vs humans movie than this might not be to your liking. But if you are a fan of good old fashioned thriller movie, then this probably would be more suitable with the slow build up to the end. And should you be interested, the film is already playing in CGV theaters since yesterday.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
A big thank you from us to Rivki from CGV for the invitation to this event. We really appreciate it and look forward to future events.
Below are few of the photos from the screening yesterday
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