Films centred around alien invasions are always intriguing and there are good ones out there, with good suspense and thrills. There are also some very bad ones, ones that have decent premises and ideas but don't know what to do with them.

Despite the very unoriginal and silly premise and a not so inviting and even derivative cover, 'Taking Earth' was a film that part of me was intrigued by and hoping to get some entertainment value out of it (regardless of how unintentional or marginal). Alien invasion film completests may also be interested before watching. They are better off finding other ones out there though, there are plenty, because 'Taking Earth' was really quite terrible. Not just as an alien invasion film, but it is a catastrophic failure on its own terms, one of the worst films seen recently by me.

'Taking Earth' only has some lovely locations going for it. They are sadly not enough to compensate entirely though, because they are wasted by chaotic photography and even more confused editing that makes the more action-oriented scenes even harder to follow than they already are. Everything screams of cheapness and the direction, both inept and pedestrian, doesn't help.

Music may not be as bad as a vast majority of the film, but the placement is often so inappropriate and really harms the atmosphere. Not that there is a whole lot in the first place, it all feels dull and muddled with very little character or coherence.

Writing is stilted and improvisatory-sounding gibberish, with no momentum. In a far too talky and exposition-heavy film, the lack of sense or urgency really kills the pace. Then there is the story, which is ridiculous, emotionally cold, all over the place in terms of focus and dull.

Characters are ones one is irritated by rather than connecting with them, nothing relatable or interesting about characters so sketchily developed and annoying. The acting is a mess, some of 'Taking Earth' on this front over-play, others are like emotionless robots.

Overall, terrible. 1/10 Bethany Cox

TARGET EARTH is yet another alien invasion flick made on an indie budget, so don't hold out much hope for it. This one's South African in origin and involves aliens arriving on Earth and causing destruction in their hunt for a special child. Wooden acting and mundane plotting are the order of the day here, but there's a handful of scenes with decent CGI effects scattered throughout; the crashing passenger plane scene is quite fun. Not enough to make this a good film overall, though.

Aliens attack Earth and threaten to destroy it unless they can find and take back Cameron (Marco Torlage) not quite an Earth teen. He is traveling the South African countryside (the part that has only white people) with another teen David (Ronan Quarmby). David is looking for his girlfriend Sarah, while Cameron is searching for his mum Ellen (Barbara Harrison) who is not really his mum. In this film "the force" is called "the pure light" and can only be used when looking like you are deadly constipated, trying to live.

Growing up in an era of men in rubber masks and pans on a string, I find all CG looking kinda good. However the soundtrack had a faux made-for-TV element to it and the acting were kids who got kicked out of high school drama. The dialogue, except for maybe that one F-word, was all for children. Alien Garabon (Brad Richards) had a fancy for Porsche and caffeine. I always believed in my heart that Starbucks and German automotive engineering would be our contribution to the Federation Galaxy...if not, then Internet porn.

And PLOT SPOILER- maybe. A character "dies" at the end and has one of the worst dragged out death scenes I have ever seen, making spoof death scenes look real...you know the ones where the actor grabs their chest and staggers across the set knocking over furniture, making a second pass, finally going to the ground, kicking their legs up in the air a few times, and then has some final remarks before they do it all one more time. Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but I was screaming, "Die already!" The script was dreadful.

Written, directed, produced, and edited by Grant Humphreys. First attempt.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.