Starring the offspring of iconic actors and boasting an appealing poster and a decent trailer, my expectations for the low budget British movie U.F.O. (not to be confused with the long forgotten Roy Chubby Brown vehicle from 1993) were high.
Two Seans, Brosnan (who looks and sounds quite a bit like his father Pierce) and Pertwee (son of Jon), share the screen with one of Jean- Claude Van Damme offspring and several unknowns, plus there are spaceships and fight scenes. Sounds like a real feast for exploitation movie fans. I was excited and I guess a feeling of disappointment was inevitable.
The problem is all in the execution. Sharing more in common with the all mouth and no trousers sci-fi "mockbusters" made by prolific schlock peddlers The Asylum than Gareth Edwards' similar but superior MONSTERS (2010), Dominic Burns' film makes all the wrong moves.
The problems are clear right from the start. A string of scenes that fail to engage and just go on for ages. The opening credits run over a long sequence in a nightclub which is interminable. Scene after scene is overlong (including a gratuitous sex scene) and too often the film is stylistically indulgent. The camera swings and sways and pans round and round but it doesn't make the scenes anymore interesting. There are also irritating insert shots that attempt to foreshadow the terrible things to come.
As tedious as it is ambitious, U.F.O. is as unimaginative as its title. Extremely derivative (there's a sense of déjà vu about each scene – right up to the closing moments), it takes forever to get going but then can't quite decide on a direction.
This is one of those films about a bunch of ordinary people who find themselves amid extraordinary circumstances. In this case the chaos of an alien invasion. But even after a huge spaceships appears, a lot of the film just involves spending time with an unappealing ensemble of characters talking about the situation and other things and not actually doing anything interesting. The focus is often on the crumbling of society rather than the aggressive actions of aliens but it's not involving.
When the characters do take some action and the director throws some physical conflict into the mix it all gets confusing rather than exciting. Martial artist Joey Ansah appears in a small role and fans won't be surprised that he gets to have a pretty cool fight scene, but when it happens it seems like things have shifted gears too quickly. The context for the fight is not well established so it's hard to care about what's happening. It's more confusing than exciting.
Sean Brosnan is the film's lead and fares pretty well as he's essentially still unknown. Sean Pertwee on the other hand has a number of good roles in high profile films behind him, so to see him essentially reprising his crazy act from the doomed TALOS THE MUMMY (Russell Mulcahy, 1998) in a couple of short scenes in a film this poor is somewhat depressing. Perhaps more so than when we see what Van Damme is asked to contribute.
This film's major selling point is that extended cameo from Van Damme. Something spoiled not only by the post and credits, but by a quick, out of context shot of the star moments into the film. Other shots follow periodically until his character actually joins the others late in the film.
Van Damme's appearance in this film is very curious, but alongside numerous direct-to-DVD movies the star has made supporting appearances in a number of films in various countries. He's been in Turkish, French and recently Russian films (none of which have been released in the UK yet). His glamorous daughter has her first big role as the nominal lead actress and I guess she or the producers convinced him it would be a fun opportunity for the two to work together.
Bianca Bree is usually only seen in very minor roles in her father's films (along with her brother who usually gets more screen time) but here the roles are reversed. This is indeed a novel facet to U.F.O. that fans will enjoy, especially in the final act when Bree finally gets something to do and we get to see Van Damme for more than a fraction of a second, but that in itself is not enough to make the film fun and to be recommended. Fans who endured DRAGON EYES (John Hyams, 2012) may want to avoid this as it's not much better.
The final issue I had with the film is that it didn't quite know how to end. There are several twists, each taken from other films, and one final turn of the screw and then it's all over. Which is a relief.
