Today’s quick review: Occupation. When aliens invade their small Australian town, Matt Simmons (Dan Ewing) and his girlfriend Amelia (Stephany Jacobsen) help lead a group of survivors to safety, including an ex-con (Temuera Morrison) and his estranged teenage daughter (Izzy Stevens), a pregnant nurse (Rhiannon Fish), and Amelia’s younger brother (Trystan Go). Hiding in the forest, the survivors begin to wage a guerrilla war against the alien invaders.
Occupation is a sci-fi action movie about an alien invasion and the band of humans resisting it. The movie follows Matt, Amelia, and their fellow survivors over the course of several months as they fight back against the aliens and search for a way to save their loved ones who have been captured. Occupation’s ambition and effort make it a surprisingly capable film, but its merely decent story and limited budget put a cap on what it can achieve.
Occupation makes the most of what appears to be a modest budget. The invasion goes light on the CGI but heavy on the pyrotechnics and practical effects. As a result, the action scenes do manage to sell the scale of the conflict, even if the action itself isn’t particularly refined. The story is similarly ambitious: a lengthy, multi-stage tale that charts the invasion from start to finish and tracks the arcs of nearly a dozen survivors.
With that said, Occupation only achieves part of what it sets out to do. The cast avoids any major pitfalls, with decent acting and varied characters, but there are no outstanding performances or brilliant characters to latch onto. The plot has plenty of dramatic events, but it lacks clear intermediary objectives or a well-motivated endpoint. The ebb and flow of the war seems to happen on its own, without any coups for or mistakes by the characters.
Fans of budget science fiction may want to give Occupation a shot. The movie lacks the spectacle, polish, and star power of its big-budget counterparts, and it doesn’t add anything new to the alien invasion genre. But it does make good use of the resources at its disposal and puts in enough effort to make it a decent watch for those willing to take it for what it is. Steer clear if you’re looking to be impressed in concrete terms.
For another movie about the guerrilla resistance to an invasion, try Red Dawn. For a more action-packed alien invasion, try Independence Day. For a budget alien invasion movie with more of a twist, try Extinction. For one with a worse script and acting, try Taking Earth or Robot Overlords.
5.2 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 6.0 for decent fundamentals without the novelty or polish to go farther.