Background: This is actually the 5th film in The Asylum's catalog, but I was unable to get my hands on the first four. Not really willing to put any extra effort into find those movies, I decided to start with their 2005 cash-in on Dreamworks' War of the Worlds starring Tom Cruise.
Both films are adaptations of H.G. Wells' novel of the same name, that Orson Welles' radio adaptation was famous for supposedly causing widespread panic when people mistakenly thought a Martian invasion was really happening.
I've seen Dreamworks' War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise and have to say that I didn't much care for it. I much prefer the 1950's War of the Worlds adaptation. I'm curious to see whether The Asylum can do a better job of adapting the novel. I mean, they have hexapods! That's twice as many legs than the tripods in the Dreamworks version. They must be twice as bad ass! Also, the poster is obviously referencing Independence Day, which was one of the alien invasion movies of my childhood. How can this possibly go wrong??
Plot: In this modern retelling of H.G. Wells' sci-fi classic, civilization is laid to ruin when a race of super aliens invades Earth.
Trailer for Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove. You can sometimes get a general idea of a movie's quality by the trailers they play. This one starts with a low-budget killer pirate movie. This is going to be a good time, I can tell!
Jake Busey's in this? Aww yeah!
Almost 2 minutes worth of credits
TITS! We're off to a good start!
George and Felicity are preparing to go to Washington D.C. for their anniversary
Their son Alex sees a meteorite in his telescope
George is called into work and arrives in time to see the meteorite hit the ground
It's "ginormous" and "smells like ass" and is causing electromagnetic interference
A hexapod rises from the crater and starts kill the dozen or so people gathered around it
Wow, these special effects look like ass...
00:14:06 - "Listen to me! Don't come home! No no, stay there. Stay in Washington, it's not safe." Yeah, this thing came out of the ground and killed like 7 people! Fucking RUN!!!
00:15:40 - As George is leaving the city, he turns around to see this grim scene
 |
| Is that single fire? OMG! |
The city is in ruins!
Some lady was told it was the work of terrorists by the Army
More hexapods show up and the soldiers shoot up at the sky for a couple minutes.
George curls up in the fetal position and avoids being killed a second time
A random soldier stumbles (literally) onto George, they decide to hole up inside a shack they tipped over and crawled underneath because the door was locked. They're totally safe now!
00:22:46 - Red skeleton
Soldier admits that he survived by jumping into a ditch
00:23:01 - "It's like bio-warfare, man. I mean, I've seen things. I've seen bio-warfare before."
00:24:43 - Is that the same red skeleton reused?
Jake Busey is starting a resistance
00:32:52 - Acid spitting cock
00:32:55 - Guy takes a load of alien jizz to the face, melty face effects are actually pretty decent
Peter Greene is George's brother. He's been torn in half by debris and George tries to give him water
00:37:30 - Two red skeletons, I was sure they only had one!
00:42:03 - " I was in my den, watching the Simpsons, when the demons first came..." Best line ever by a Pastor!
00:54:40 - 3-4 more red skeletons, it's kinda cool that these aliens have the Mars Attacks lasers that turn people into skeletons
These assholes spend like 15 minutes whispering to each other in a basement. I couldn't make out what they were saying to each other but I can't tell if I was just starting to tune it out because I was so bored.
01:14:03 - Pastor is killed by an alien money shot!
George runs into the soldier from earlier and Jake Busey, who has become the leader of the resistance.
Jake Busey shoots the soldier in the face for no reason, prompting George to bash his skull in with a rock. The other soldiers just walk away, no one really cares.
George finally makes it to Washington D.C. but finds it ruins.
Giving up, he lets a random alien kill him but it just falls over and dies. A bunch of random survivors come out of nowhere and tell him that they've been dying on their own. George is reunited with his wife and son.
Final Thoughts: This wasn't as terrible as I was expecting but it's not any good either. I do have an all-new appreciation for the Tom Cruise version though. Another thing I have to mention is that the time codes were a little different from when I watched this movie on my PS3 and when I was taking screenshots on my computer. Also, the movie was a lot darker on my computer.