Alien Dawn

For every interpretation of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" — from the radio broadcast and the movies, to the TV series — one could safely rely on consistency: interesting, if not always likable protagonists bearing witness to the near extinction of humanity at the three-fingered hands of aliens motoring around in tripod war machines firing death rays with a distinctive "pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew" sound. In fact, no matter how each version changed with location, hero or narrative device, the ray guns and tripods have been mandatory (often, using the same sound effects Byron Haskin's created for the 1953 movie). And just as consistently, every movie and TV producer since has as least acknowledged H.G. Wells' in a story credit.

That is, until Neil Johnston dropped this steaming pile of dark matter onto our planet. Perhaps that's just as well. Why besmirch a great legacy with this amateurish entry?

In a jumble of styles — which simply HAS to include some found-footage video journalism — the writer/director lifts from a variety of other sources as well. Most obviously, Dawn of the Dead, and the 1984 version of Red Dawn. Perhaps the only redeeming quality is including the word "Dawn" in the title, so the viewer might mistake this as some kind of homage.

You might think that despite the crushing familiarity of the material, you could find a morsel of entertainment. Perhaps you have a fondness for cheaply-rendered 3D and quickly executed After Effects. But if you love clumsy hack writing, this is the movie for you. Betraying even less skill with dialog than he does with with plagiarizing plot, the director creates a world of bickering, unlikeable morons you don't care anything about. And they're often sputtering ill-considered truisms from other films. For example, after one character theorizes that the invading aliens are changing our terrestrial environment to suit their biological needs, a key character solemnly - and unironically - declares, "It's called 'Terraforming.'" Indeed. And Alien Dawn isn't the product of film-making, but rather "movie-forming."

I have seen a lot of questionable movies throughout my 37 years, and "Alien Dawn" is definitely among the top of the pile of questionable movies.

"Alien Dawn" shamelessly steals from movie such as "War of the Worlds" and "Skyline" without even trying to cover it up. The alien invaders tripods and how they pick up people for processing. It was painful to watch.

The effects in the movie were laughable and not pleasant on the eyes. The explosions were hilariously fake and bad. And the CGI effects were dubious and questionable, most of the time looking quite fake. However, I will say that in defense of the movie, that there were times that the tripod beings looked nice enough. The sounds of the alien weapons sounded like something I remember a toy gun I had when I was a kid used to make, it was bad. And apparently alien weapons is just randomly flashing an array of colors on the screen. It made absolutely no sense.

As for the acting, well I have seen worse, but it wasn't really anywhere near being interesting. There was a lot of acting fully devoid of emotion and enthusiasm. And that made the movie quite difficult to suffer through, as if the bad effects and sounds weren't doing their part to bring it down.

The story? Well just think of "War of the Worlds" mixed with "Skyline", and you basically have the plot of "Alien Dawn". If you have seen either of those two movies, you essentially have seen "Alien Dawn" as well. And it was just so ridiculous that the small band of 'survivors' could bring down tripods with homemade bombs, when military air planes couldn't do the same job.

If you enjoy Sci-Fi movies, then there are far better movies available than "Alien Dawn". However, if you like super campy and cheesy Sci-Fi movies, then you will probably get a kick out of "Alien Dawn".

This movie will definitely test your talent for managing to stay focused for about an hour and twenty minutes.

I'm only 7 minutes into this War of the Worlds and Star Wars ripoff and my eyes and ears can't take much more. The flashbang, choppy editing or whatever it is that is causing my screen to flicker with every explosion and the jumbled together Star Wars sound effects has me on the verge of cutting myself to make it through. The acting is horrendous. If the makers would have put half as much money into the plot and some decent actors instead of CGI-ing the hell out of everything, then maybe I would have rated it a 4. I only gave it a 2 (instead of a 1) because I applaud anyone who can go out and get a movie produced and marketed (no matter how crappy it may be). This one is to be avoided like the plague. If the CGI, plot, acting and editing would have been better, then I would recommend it...but alas, I cannot. Better luck next time guys (if there is a next time).

Expecting a crappy movie to watch - as mindless background noise - I was happily surprised. Think 'made for Sy-Fy' and you'll know what to expect. The CGI is cheap, but not as bad as expected.

It seemed to me be a cheap knock-off of 'Cloverfield' mixed with 'War of the Worlds'.

I think the big gripe people have with this was the lack of big-battle drama. Instead we have a small group of people just trying to survive. The acting and dialog unfortunately is so real that it's annoying - lots of frantic yelling at each other in confusion and desperation.

Actually, other than the obvious low budget, this was not that bad - give it a chance.

I rate it at least 4.0

If you want to make your worse enemy suffer, make him (her) watch this piece of cinematographic "art" from start till end. Guaranteed to achieve the wanted result. I still have to understand why somebody will finance (even with a miserable amount) such a nonsense? I am not an old, grumpy purist, I do enjoy digestible science fiction - been a fan of easy-minded St..-Tr.. all my life, but this is unwatchable, seriously. The evil alien machine theme is with us for over a hundred years now but this has to be the worst implementation yet and I've seen a lot of recycle bin stuff in my life due to my editing work. 1) Beaten up theme = no plot whatsoever 2) Awful CGI = Painful to watch in a conscious state 3) Appalling acting = Actually no acting as such AVOID, life is short!