Today’s quick review: Taking Earth. The Earth descends into chaos when alien invaders take control of a fraction of the population to search for Cameron (Marco Torlage), a disguised alien refugee who holds the key to winning an interplanetary war. Cameron’s only hope is to flee across the country with his friend David (Ronan Quarmby) to a waiting spaceship, all while staying ahead of General Garabon (Brad Richards), the leader of the invasion.
Taking Earth is a teen sci-fi adventure with a low budget and poor execution. Taking Earth attempts to be a dramatic science fiction epic that tells the story of a boy with a secret, a planet-wide invasion, and an interplanetary war. However, the movie falls well short of its ambitions. What potential it has is buried under a host of issues ranging from a muddled script and amateurish direction to stilted acting and counterproductive CGI.
Taking Earth struggles with basic storytelling. It sets up its story in the most roundabout way possible, making the first twenty minutes of the movie almost impossible to follow. Core plot points are never fully explained, while the few explanations given raise the wrong kind of questions. The tone seesaws wildly between the high-stakes drama of the story, an excessively grandiose soundtrack, and pervasive, flimsy attempts at humor.
There are a slew of other problems. The dialogue repeats itself without explaining anything. The characters vacillate between forced excitement and unconvincing drama. The pacing is slower than it intends to be, culminating in a drawn-out ending that is not worth the wait. The low budget compounds these problems: The acting is universally flat and unnatural, the few action scenes are badly choreographed, and the cheap CGI hurts more than it helps.
The vast majority of viewers would be better off skipping Taking Earth entirely. Its storytelling is unclear, its spectacle is minimal, and the overall quality of craftsmanship is low enough to make it a chore to get through. Watch it only to dissect it. For a much more entertaining take on a very similar premise, check out I Am Number Four. For a big-budget movie in a similar vein with better spectacle, check out Jupiter Ascending.
2.8 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 3.5 for sloppy execution of a mediocre premise.