zuitsuit

What a slog of a story? Episode 5 is the only thing that kept me awake to see why this was all happening. That story and the performances of Morrow and the other actors are at least an homage (and a prequel) to the original movie and it is at the very least engaging to watch. Everything else in this series feels like pseudo-PG-13 Disney/Conjuring/jump scare filler performed by a lazy cast of highly unattractive people. This mainly British piece of heavy-fog could've been a decent movie in less than two hours, but the Disney princesses decided to force our attention much longer than needed.

I won't give any credit to the childish acting in the main story because even they seem to sleep through the constant "Peter Pan" dialog that doesn't feel essential to the viewer in any way possible. Especially since we're supposed to be concerned about an alien invasion on Earth, not the robot rivalries. In this story, the Earth has completely ignored a crashed space vehicle and no one wears a mask or a hazmat suit while investigating the crash site or while studying the living/dead organisms inside the crash site. There is no visible security at all in the 2100s. They literally touch everything with their bare hands and breath everything with open mouths in this series. Even our current society would know better than that if something from outer space crashed in our backyards. The show feels like idiotic disbelief for a weaker generation of science fiction fans. Don't believe the high ratings at all.

The American obsession with superheroes and their ability to fix every situation is what ruins their version of a perfectly fine and original horror story. For better performances and an ending with a serious message and a real gut-punch of an impact, I suggest watching this original European version instead.

The actors in this version seem to have a better understanding of how this story should be told. The main characters are all very likable in the beginning. Everyone is smiling, polite and friendly at first and the tension is built very subtly and steadily as the story progresses. It's easy to believe that these "nice" people would connect with each other until things start to get weird. The constant politeness and smiling is better than any jump scare in a bad film. In the American version, the cynicism and the red flags begin almost immediately. The sullen American protagonists seem to find rudeness with other nice people entertaining and they follow along with it. They barely smile or act as polite as the naive nature of this story demands. That and their "marital problems" throws off the center of who we're supposed to feel sorry for at the end.

Speaking of the new ending in the new version... Americans need to understand that not every story needs a superhero and bad things can actually happen to nice people with poor decisions. Please stop creating miracles and stunts just because your audience can't handle the consequences of an actual horror story with a message. I'm so glad I watched the original European version first because their horror felt realistic and genuinely disturbing for the type of characters that we have here.

The American obsession with superheroes and their ability to fix every situation is what ruins this version of a perfectly fine horror story. For better performances and an ending with a serious message and a real gut-punch of an impact, I suggest watching the original European version instead.

James MacAvoy does an okay job as the antagonist in this version, however the entire cast and the changed ending fails at selling the overall moral of the original story. In the original version, the main characters are all very likable in the beginning. Everyone is smiling, polite and friendly at first and tension is built very subtly and steadily as the story progresses. It's easy to believe that these "nice" people would connect with each other until things start to get weird. In the American version, the cynicism and the red flags begin almost immediately. The sullen American protagonists seem to find James' rudeness with other nice people entertaining and they follow along with it. They barely smile or act as polite as the naive nature of the story demands. It throws off the center of who we're supposed to feel sorry for at the end.

Speaking of the new ending... Americans need to understand that not every story needs a superhero and bad things can actually happen to nice people with poor decisions. Please stop creating "miracles" and stunts just because your audience can't handle the consequences of an actual horror story with a message. I'm glad I watched the original version first because my suspension of disbelief was ruined in the American version when a man with (what should be) broken legs is able to save the day for everyone.