Nothing like missing someone from your life to get you motivated to write reviews I guess. I didn't get my last review done as quickly as I thought I would, but I still got through it without much trouble. I went to the store to get a few things to eat for the week and then jumped right into my next movie. I decided to watch Area 51 (2015) on Amazon Prime. This is a movie from the same guy that gave us Paranormal Activity, so I was excited to give it a go.
While at a party with his friends, Reid (Reid Warner) disappears after a short power outage. Ben (Ben Rovner) and Darrin (Darrin Bragg) go looking for him after a while and decide to leave the party. The eventually find Reid while driving down a road and Reid doesn't seem to remember what happened at all. Three months later, Reid has become obsessed with Area 51, a top secret area that the government tends to deny. Reid has come up with a plan that will get Darrin and himself on the base. He knows the main road in is well guarded but feels the backside isn't so much. They meet with Jelena (Jelena Nik), whose father wrote a book about Area 51, claiming to have worked there. Reid feels that Jelena can provide information that they will need but Ben feels otherwise. Can they trust Jelena and will they get into Area 51?
Area 51 was co-written by Christopher Denham and Oren Peli, who also directed. Much like Paranormal Activity, Area 51 is a found footage style film. Things start off with interviews from friends of the three guys wondering why and how they disappeared. Right away we know that things probably didn't end well for the three friends. From there we see recordings from the three friends. No explaining where this footage came from or anything. It makes less sense how we are able to see it once you get to the ending. I suppose someone could have leaked it. Anyway, I really liked Paranormal Activity, but this one misses the mark. I didn't hate the film at all mind you. I'm not going to give it the greatest rating, but I seemed to have liked it more than most of my friend on Letterboxd did. Our group, Ben stays behind so he can pick up the others if they return, gets into a highly secret and guarded complex a bit too easily. They have suits that hide their body temperature, they disable one device on their way in, and find a way under an electric fence. They do manage to hide from a helicopter at one point as well. Not sure how they got away with that one unless the people in the helicopter wasn't really looking for anyone. I would have given a spoiler warning there, but I think we all know that they would make it onto the base. From there, things get a bit worse. They do discover some cool stuff deep within the base, but once they start running around, it becomes hard to tell what is happening at times. The action at this point is mostly filmed on body cameras, which helps explain why they are filming at all times. The problem with that is that it causes the camera to move around a lot as they are running, not that the hand-held camera would have been better. It is just annoying when I can't tell what the hell is going on because the camera is moving all over the place. I realize this would happen in the real world, but a movie isn't the real world. There is never a very good shot of whatever it is that goes after our group. Because of these problems, the last quarter of the film didn't feel as exciting or creepy as it could have been. Area 51 isn't all bad though. Even though we don't get to know the characters all that much, the lead up to breaking into Area 51 wasn't all that bad. I did wish there was a little less of that and more of Area 51, but whatever. Some of the things that did happen inside of Area 51 was also pretty cool.
I was rather surprised that there wasn't much going for special effects. Nothing gory at all and not much else for effects either. There is a floating rock, or whatever it was supposed to be. I think my favorite was when someone floated away. It just looked really good. We never get a very good look at what the aliens are supposed to look like. There are just some really quick shots or shots that we just can't see much of them. I was rather disappointed with that. The acting wasn't too bad at least. I actually like Ben Rovner the most, who had the least amount of scenes. Not that the others were bad, I just seemed to like him more for whatever reason. I wasn't sure about Jelena Nik at first, but I ended up liking her acting as well.
I thought that Paranormal Activity worked so well because Peli kept it simple. There wasn't anything major going on in that film and for a haunted house, it worked. Peli seems to take the same approach here and it doesn't work this time around. When you have a story about breaking into a top secret government facility, simple isn't really the way to go. As I said, it wasn't all bad, but the good things weren't enough to help it much. It was still a well-made film and some people really got into it, as there are some high ratings. If it sounds like a movie you would like, give it a watch. You might like it more than I did after all.
2 out of 5 Aliens aren't going to be probing me!
While at a party with his friends, Reid (Reid Warner) disappears after a short power outage. Ben (Ben Rovner) and Darrin (Darrin Bragg) go looking for him after a while and decide to leave the party. The eventually find Reid while driving down a road and Reid doesn't seem to remember what happened at all. Three months later, Reid has become obsessed with Area 51, a top secret area that the government tends to deny. Reid has come up with a plan that will get Darrin and himself on the base. He knows the main road in is well guarded but feels the backside isn't so much. They meet with Jelena (Jelena Nik), whose father wrote a book about Area 51, claiming to have worked there. Reid feels that Jelena can provide information that they will need but Ben feels otherwise. Can they trust Jelena and will they get into Area 51?
Area 51 was co-written by Christopher Denham and Oren Peli, who also directed. Much like Paranormal Activity, Area 51 is a found footage style film. Things start off with interviews from friends of the three guys wondering why and how they disappeared. Right away we know that things probably didn't end well for the three friends. From there we see recordings from the three friends. No explaining where this footage came from or anything. It makes less sense how we are able to see it once you get to the ending. I suppose someone could have leaked it. Anyway, I really liked Paranormal Activity, but this one misses the mark. I didn't hate the film at all mind you. I'm not going to give it the greatest rating, but I seemed to have liked it more than most of my friend on Letterboxd did. Our group, Ben stays behind so he can pick up the others if they return, gets into a highly secret and guarded complex a bit too easily. They have suits that hide their body temperature, they disable one device on their way in, and find a way under an electric fence. They do manage to hide from a helicopter at one point as well. Not sure how they got away with that one unless the people in the helicopter wasn't really looking for anyone. I would have given a spoiler warning there, but I think we all know that they would make it onto the base. From there, things get a bit worse. They do discover some cool stuff deep within the base, but once they start running around, it becomes hard to tell what is happening at times. The action at this point is mostly filmed on body cameras, which helps explain why they are filming at all times. The problem with that is that it causes the camera to move around a lot as they are running, not that the hand-held camera would have been better. It is just annoying when I can't tell what the hell is going on because the camera is moving all over the place. I realize this would happen in the real world, but a movie isn't the real world. There is never a very good shot of whatever it is that goes after our group. Because of these problems, the last quarter of the film didn't feel as exciting or creepy as it could have been. Area 51 isn't all bad though. Even though we don't get to know the characters all that much, the lead up to breaking into Area 51 wasn't all that bad. I did wish there was a little less of that and more of Area 51, but whatever. Some of the things that did happen inside of Area 51 was also pretty cool.
I was rather surprised that there wasn't much going for special effects. Nothing gory at all and not much else for effects either. There is a floating rock, or whatever it was supposed to be. I think my favorite was when someone floated away. It just looked really good. We never get a very good look at what the aliens are supposed to look like. There are just some really quick shots or shots that we just can't see much of them. I was rather disappointed with that. The acting wasn't too bad at least. I actually like Ben Rovner the most, who had the least amount of scenes. Not that the others were bad, I just seemed to like him more for whatever reason. I wasn't sure about Jelena Nik at first, but I ended up liking her acting as well.
I thought that Paranormal Activity worked so well because Peli kept it simple. There wasn't anything major going on in that film and for a haunted house, it worked. Peli seems to take the same approach here and it doesn't work this time around. When you have a story about breaking into a top secret government facility, simple isn't really the way to go. As I said, it wasn't all bad, but the good things weren't enough to help it much. It was still a well-made film and some people really got into it, as there are some high ratings. If it sounds like a movie you would like, give it a watch. You might like it more than I did after all.
2 out of 5 Aliens aren't going to be probing me!
