This is not a good film though fairly entertaining in a bad-is-good sort of way. It is a budget film and it shows in many ways that are relatively good and bad. Nothing wrong with a budget film, in fact applause to those involved in such films for taking on the might of Hollywood. I have great respect for them.
The Good: 1. Using snippets of US and foreign stock-footage of armed forces (and weapons testing results on decommissioned warships) is quite an effective way of getting 'hardware' on a budget. It was highly inaccurate, disjointed, laughable, and often did not reflect what was happening, but that does not really matter to the casual viewer and it effectively served it's purpose. Having a military advisor would have improved military reality no end though and made it a better film.
2. The nuclear part was well done and was quite chilling in showing civilian populations going about their daily business quite unaware of their fate. The footage of actual nuclear explosions was well chosen and frightening.
3. The fate of the main protagonists was left to the imagination and allowed the viewer to visualise and think about the end of civilisation.
4. Fairly current in terms of world politics though not the predictive film some suggest given the plot line.
The Bad: 1. The acting is entirely unconvincing, particularly the main action hero and FBI agent. Granted neither had much to work with, but they were both awkward and stilted, which is forgivable for the FBI agent actor as he has only this film to his credit, but is less forgivable for the action hero actor as he has many films under his belt.
2. Terrible dialogue. Overall the dialogue speaks in clichés, and both action man and FBI agent seemed to speak in sort of sound bites from other poor-dialogue action films. The dialogue was massively unrealistic, e.g. The action man giving away all of that information to a stranger on the phone claiming to be FBI, and the mother getting a phone call from the son as he about to join the first wave ashore!
3. The action scenes are laughably terrible, such as the action-man-for-all-seasons hero being involved in a very loud and extremely explosive fight for the woodland tree line and then having the enemy airbase 1.5 'clicks' away being completely unaware of it!
The Ugly: 1. The film is about the lead up to a nuclear war orchestrated by a shadowy figure within the US hunched over a computer. This plot line brings the film in to the realm of conspiracy theory's and undermines the realism of the film's story arc and any claims to be predictive. It would have been better by far to have shown the progression to nuclear war through current political and geographical realities. This would have required more imagination and thought on how it could happen, but paid dividends for the films narrative.
2. Who are the real aggressors here? From one standpoint the aggressor is the US over-reacting and taking military action with little thought and escalating things for no valid reason and no excusable outcomes. This has been happening, particularly in the Middle East, with the US and Western allies since the 60s, so maybe the film is reflecting that to show how one day things might go too far.
The Good: 1. Using snippets of US and foreign stock-footage of armed forces (and weapons testing results on decommissioned warships) is quite an effective way of getting 'hardware' on a budget. It was highly inaccurate, disjointed, laughable, and often did not reflect what was happening, but that does not really matter to the casual viewer and it effectively served it's purpose. Having a military advisor would have improved military reality no end though and made it a better film.
2. The nuclear part was well done and was quite chilling in showing civilian populations going about their daily business quite unaware of their fate. The footage of actual nuclear explosions was well chosen and frightening.
3. The fate of the main protagonists was left to the imagination and allowed the viewer to visualise and think about the end of civilisation.
4. Fairly current in terms of world politics though not the predictive film some suggest given the plot line.
The Bad: 1. The acting is entirely unconvincing, particularly the main action hero and FBI agent. Granted neither had much to work with, but they were both awkward and stilted, which is forgivable for the FBI agent actor as he has only this film to his credit, but is less forgivable for the action hero actor as he has many films under his belt.
2. Terrible dialogue. Overall the dialogue speaks in clichés, and both action man and FBI agent seemed to speak in sort of sound bites from other poor-dialogue action films. The dialogue was massively unrealistic, e.g. The action man giving away all of that information to a stranger on the phone claiming to be FBI, and the mother getting a phone call from the son as he about to join the first wave ashore!
3. The action scenes are laughably terrible, such as the action-man-for-all-seasons hero being involved in a very loud and extremely explosive fight for the woodland tree line and then having the enemy airbase 1.5 'clicks' away being completely unaware of it!
The Ugly: 1. The film is about the lead up to a nuclear war orchestrated by a shadowy figure within the US hunched over a computer. This plot line brings the film in to the realm of conspiracy theory's and undermines the realism of the film's story arc and any claims to be predictive. It would have been better by far to have shown the progression to nuclear war through current political and geographical realities. This would have required more imagination and thought on how it could happen, but paid dividends for the films narrative.
2. Who are the real aggressors here? From one standpoint the aggressor is the US over-reacting and taking military action with little thought and escalating things for no valid reason and no excusable outcomes. This has been happening, particularly in the Middle East, with the US and Western allies since the 60s, so maybe the film is reflecting that to show how one day things might go too far.