First Light

This is neither a great scifi film nor the worst ever made. Come on folks, have a little balance in your reviews.

If you're going to watch a teen-oriented movie, don't condemn it for being teen oriented. Seriously. That's like the atheists who watch religious films and then slam them for being faith oriented. Don't be goofy.

This film has some unusually good directing and filming. The plot is a little thin and it's a little slow-moving, but it doesn't have "no ending" as some claim here; it's just not the tucked-in-a-box ending they wanted or expected.

The characters were well-designed and the actors played the parts well. For once there was no cliche evil clandestine governmental conspiracy plots going on. This is a first-contact story without all the neat and tidies. That's based on simple common sense: If first-contact occurred with an alien species, what makes us think we would have anything at all in common as a starting ground?

This is (as was fully declared from the beginning) a teen romance film. No it didn't all make sense. For example... how is it he starts out selling jewelry in a pawn shop for $20 because "we need the money"... then later they have enough cash for pizzas and medicine and bus tickets and whatever they need? So yeah, it could have been better thought out.

So no, not the best movie ever made, nor the absolute worst. It's standard scifi.

I found the watch enjoyable, not disappointing at the end, and basically entertaining. I give films 5 stars for "mediocre but tolerable". This one gets a 6. Not quite good enough for anything above that, but worth the watch.

I really enjoyed this movie and had no idea what it was about before watching it. Great acting scenery and effects. I always thought the film distributor " Gravitas Ventures " brought out Naff movies but this little Gem has proven me wrong! It's a 7 from me.

Give it a chance. Watch til the end and you'll get it. It drags a little, but pay attention. I thought it was a good teenage romance/science fiction. I like movies where I have an emotional connection with the main characters, and I did. I recommend to teens and over.

The wide swing in positive and negative reviews for At First Light would suggest that the movie is not for everyone. It does not deserve to be savaged by reviewers who expected from it something it was not intended to provide. It is not by any means ordinary low-budget sci-fi fare; the production values and effects are good, and the performances are commendable. It is, in the tradition of 2001 and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, more poetic than expository, and perhaps if it had had the budget of those movies it would be better received. Criticism that it is not sufficiently self-explanatory is misplaced, since any attempt to explain things that are supposed to be incomprehensible would have diminished the movie.

At the same time it is not perfect: its pacing is too deliberate for modern audiences, and its premise is far from original. But those who are not in a great hurry and who enjoy science fiction will probably come away satisfied with the viewing experience. The movie should have an IMDB rating above 7; 8 may be a little high in the grand scheme of things, but one must do what one can do to nudge it towards where it belongs.

Great acting, great direction, for a very quiet release over most countries this is a sneaky pleasure. I'd heard from american friends this was worth a watch and they were indeed correct. I want more from all sources.