I was drawn in by the concept, though I think that people expecting a traditional ghost story may be a bit disappointed by the lack of exposition, plus the lack of a tidy conclusion that draws everything together. Much like The Blair Witch Project, the ending is ambiguous, leaving you to draw your own conclusion as to what just happened. If you happen to be familiar with Middle Eastern occultism and mythology, you'll probably recognize a lot of themes and concepts, but if your knowledge is limited to Disney's Aladdin, I think you'll be completely lost, due to the lack of exposition or explanation. The most interesting aspect to this movie, that draws it away from being your normal ghost story, is that the supernatural events are couched in terms of UFO lore. Are the antagonists insurgents? Ghosts? Interdimensional travelers? UFO aliens? Djinn? Who knows. In the end, it's not really all that important. It is the melding of these two similar yet disparate themes (contemporary UFO conspiracy theories and traditional mythology) that make this movie more interesting than if it had just gone one way or the other. The problem is that this is basically a rehash of The Blair Witch Project, with people descending into mutinous fist-fights, getting lost in areas that defy both maps and local knowledge (with the requisite compass going haywire), and straaaange symbols that seem to be part warning and part curse. In fact, I felt like I was watching a strange mix of The Blair Witch Project (which I disliked quite a lot) and Apocalypse Now (which I really enjoyed), with elements of Close Encounters mixed in, near the climax. I think this works better than BWP (partly because the acting was so horrible in BWP), but it still ultimately fails, because, like BWP, it's basically just a bunch of guys walking around, seeing increasingly spooky stuff, with no real payoff at the end. In that sense, maybe it's more of an "experience" than it is storytelling, and how much you enjoy this movie will probably hinge on whether you're looking for an interesting experience or conventional storytelling.
Review of The Objective
