British filmmaker Luke Armstrong is a visual effects pro, and it shows in this film. This is his first full length feature film, with about 12 short films as director and writer, his last being a short film with the same name. I haven't seen it, but he should've stopped there, and left this story as a short.
The 89 min runtime felt like +3 hours with the snail pacing and long dragged out and some unnecessary scenes. There were tons of plot and technical issues, and the dialogue was atrocious. I get this was a low budget b-grade film, and considering the small cheap sets, it showed really well. But more effort was needed in the dialogue department in the writing and the voices. What was the point of the "main switchboard" lady? She may as well have said "please hold" - at least that would've been funny. And the voice and dialogue from the "we're working on it" intercom dude was ridiculously infantile. I mean, it wouldn't have taken much effort to make him sound and talk more authentic.
Then we have the bad acting of the two leads. Although not amateurs, they were terrible and unconvincing. I'm sure for the most part it was the fault of the director failing to direct his cast properly. And having Alana easily subdue Issac, a military soldier, was a joke - even more so when everything was "back to normal ok" after doing so.
The only other redeeming quality was the score, that was decent and fitting, especially for a b-grade film. That, plus the visuals, is why I'm giving this so-called sci-fi-in-a-box my generous 5/10.
