UFO

I believe it was amidst the annual school summer holidays last year that a disc arrived called THE DARKEST HOUR. It was an action packed 90 minutes that tested your speakers even if it didn’t tax your brain too much. As I recall, a night of boogieing at a Russian nightclub was rudely interrupted by an alien invasion and our group of attractive 20-somethings were left to save the world.

Well, as the embers of the Xmas school holidays were upon me, I was faced with a similar disc... or so I thought. Director Dominic Burns is back after AIRBORNE with an amp and subwoofer flexing picture simply titled UFO. Similar to the aforementioned TDH, the movie starts in with the bass heavy dance music soundtrack in the confines of a nightclub. But the group of attractive 20-somethings are not in Moscow but, erm, Derby! We have the uber-macho Michael (Sean Brosnan, son of Pierce) fresh from a stint in Afghanistan with the Black Corps. His ability to chug spirits are secondary only to his talent to pull the sexiest girl in the club. The subject of his desires is an American specimen of gorgeousness Carrie (Bianca Bree, aka as Bianca Van Varenberg and daughter to a certain Jean-Claude Van Damme who pops up later on). Michael’s pals are made up of the rather pathetic Vincent (Jazz Lintott), Robin (Simon Phillips) and Dana (Maya Grant) the latter of which get engaged on the romantic setting of a car rooftop within the opening minutes of the movie.

It’s your typical Saturday night for Michael. Slam a few shots, save a stupidly drunk Vincent from an ass-kicking by head-butting a couple of bouncers before returning home with a minx on his arm to test the springs of his mattress if you will.

But it’s not simply a hangover the revellers arise to the following morning. Their street is subject to a power cut, which they soon discover has engulfed the whole town. Having the essentials like wine and beer, they are not too bothered and opt to spend the day playing charades and drinking. Their concerns however are intensified 48 hours later when not only is the power still off, but radio and phone signals (including landlines) are apparently suspended and, most bizarrely, everyone’s watches and clocks have stopped dead just after twenty five to one in the morning.

Concern builds to alarm when some the strange lights illuminate the night sky. Of course it’s not too long before the lights reveal themselves as… wait for it… Unidentified Flying Objects!!!

The town soon finds themselves in a state of ‘panic’ as supermarkets are raided and the streets are filled with moderate episodes of violence.

Michael will have to call on all his experience as a soldier in an attempt to save his friends and his enigmatic new lover (who remains dazzlingly stunning!) through the crisis.

Well this may be an action packed flick about spaceships invading our planet amidst a blaze of laser beams, but kids stuff this is not!!! The movie starts with a sleazy dollop of drunken sex, is laced with profanity and contains some rather brutal scenes of violence.

CGI sequences of actual UFO’s are kept to a surprising minimum. What little we saw of the alien craft I admit I liked. The design of the Mother (and Father) ships subtly were phallic and yonic in their design, while the invaders adopted symbol of a purple pyramid may well keep the Illuminati fearing demographic among us suitably paranoid!

The movie instead focused on the main characters plight while largely confined to their home town. The narrative does take an intriguing stand however. It plays on the notion that if we were invaded by galactic intruders, they would merely need to hover and observe as the human race ripped itself to pieces saving them the trouble. It’s this element of the movie which is by far the most interesting even if it was at times a little overzealous with its political correct overtones. This ‘humans will destroy themselves’ concept goes into overdrive within the group toward the end when Vincent’s affections for Robin’s fiancé, Dana, become rather nasty to say the least…

That’s the good news. The bad news is the plot contains some gaping cavities that reduce your average Black Hole to a mere pinprick! While budgetary constraints contributed liberally to this, what were less excusable were some quite ridiculous news bulletins which attempted to paint the global picture but were irritatingly amateurish. Then there was the actual apocalyptic angst itself, which all seemed a little too restrained. I might have to move to Derby because even when in the clutches of an alien invasion, rather than picking up the nearest bench and using it as a battering ram it through Tesco’s window, the locals were polite enough to slap the glass and demand the manager open the store! Everyone knows you loot in a crisis...right?

Narrative based anomalies are nothing new in these adrenaline fuelled vehicles but what was REALLY perplexing was some of the casting. It was NOT the inclusion of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s little princess, Bianca Bree that was a problem here. (I just LOVE her name by the way; has a REAL porno star quality to it, don’t you think? Don’t tell her papa I said that!) Apart from looking fabulous, her character was actually integral to the story. But the inclusion of the ‘muscles from Brussels’ was a puzzling one. His character as Michaels ‘crazy uncle’ was pretty pointless and had a meagre few minutes screen time.

Talking of pointless players moves us nicely onto Sean Pertwee’s nameless character. Credited simply as "Tramp", he keeps springing up as some crackpot soothsayer, almost stalking the group. His dialogue barely falls short of "then end is nigh" but even so is reduced to incoherently babbling "24… 36… 24… 36"; a passage from the bible - maybe? The exact time all the clocks inexplicably stop - possibly? A role that should have been consigned to the cutting room floor and the DELETED SCENES segment – YES THAT’S IT!

Ah hold on… the disc has no extras! Nope, all we get is a menu screen with the select scene options and setup whereby you can choose to listen to the movie in Dolby Digital 5.1 or 2.0. At least that allows us to end on a positive as the aural blast of the movie is undeniably its strength. From the opening nightclub bass heavy scenes through multiple heavy body blow thuds in the numerous hand to hand combat sequences (not forgetting a meaty explosion or two) the audio on the disc really does put your speakers and subwoofer through their paces.

In summary, the movie toyed with some interesting concepts regarding the human race, while going for the jugular in the extended fight sequences. It was loud, it was violent and there was a fair bit of fun to be had with the movie. Ultimately though, U.F.O. was a little overambitious and nonsensical.

Review by Marc Lissenburg