It's not 'Edge of Tomorrow', baby… it's 'Age
of Tomorrow' and it's The Asylum getting back to the business
of what they do best… or worst… which is mockbusting.
Even though this one seems to be copying Michael Bay's
'Armageddon' only with an alien slant, thus a better title
might've been 'Alien Armageddon', but there's already a
terrible movie out there with that title. Worse than
this one you ask? Yes… actually, and this one is no
sweet smelling rose.
Meteorites are raining down on Earth including a big one,
about the third of the size of the moon, which will end life
as we know it. We wouldn't have known this if it wasn't
for crazy hot super scientist Dr. Jane (Kelly Hu) who observed
through clever observation and the scientific method that
there as a big rock approaching the Earth. And while
there is no comparing 'Edge of Tomorrow' to 'Age of Tomorrow',
but the Emily Blunt / Kelly Hu comparison would be a
push.
What The General (Robert Picardo) needs to do is send the best
there is on a mission to blow up this meteor before it hits
earth, and the best there is happens to be Captain James
Wheeler (Anthony Marks) who is still damaged because he lost a
man during the last mission in Kandahar or someplace. If
the captain was upset because he lost a single man on that
mission, he's gonna be an absolute basket case after this
mission.
So the team makes it to the meteor and it's not long that our
super scientist realizes that it's not a meteor. 'Do you
see what I see?' she would ask. I don't know they saw,
but I saw a room with Xerox copiers in it. Aliens who
make copies. Even they are trapped in the
bureaucracy. Next thing you know a bunch of orbs go from
this meteor to Earth, and some attack our crew. Some of
our crew get vaporized, but not so fast… somehow the scientist
figured they weren't vaporized but instead transported which
prompted our heroes to jump in front of these laser beams to
safety. Crazy.
There's also the parallel story of Chris the
badass fireman (Lane Townsend) trying to find his bratty
teenage daughter. Wait, did we just call Chris
badass? Badass doesn't even begin to describe what this
ax wielding fireman brings to the table.
On the alien planet, where the transporter took the crew, they
see aliens herding humans for some nefarious cause, beats me
what that cause that could be, and our heroes are going to set
these humans free. They suck at that by the way.
On Earth, Chris the fireman and his ax is kicking alien orb
ass in search of his daughter. He's great at that
by the way. In fact, he's so good at it, with humanity
itself apparently coming to an end, we are transporting him
and his ax to the alien planet to teach those alien bastards a
lesson. While an unstoppable alien force and a fireman
with an ax might seem a little lopsided, you haven't seen this
guy go.
Allrighty… directed by James Kondelik who helped direct the
last Asylum film we saw in the shockingly entertaining
'Airplane vs. Volcano', we unfortunately can't say the same
thing about 'Age of Tomorrow'. The pacing is far too
erratic because when this movie slows down, it is painfully
slow… almost to the point of being unbearable. The dual
story lines aren't doing this film any favors allowing the
audience to focus on nothing, though I guess if pressed we
will choose the alien invasion over the Earth melodrama.
And without naming names, a few of our actors are truly
awful. It doesn't help that Robert Picardo performed in
this movie like his next meal depended on it, so you have this
veteran actor bringing the Shakespeare, even though he did
most of this sitting in a chair, working with people who did
the best they could to simply remember their lines, and it
just didn't seem fair.
But even though 'Age of Tomorrow' is terrible… like most of
these movies it still has its undeniable moments. When
the General passionately tells us it's 'The Most Important
Assault in the history human kind', and we send a fireman with
an ax and some old dude with a nine on this most important
assault, that was kind of funny and kind played down the
importance of the assault. Eventually five more soldiers
would transport in for the Most Important Assault, including a
brother with a rocket launcher who at no point will ever use
that rocket launcher. And despite these soldiers and
their awesome weapons, thank God for the fireman and his ax
because he had to do ALL the killing. Worse soldiers
ever. I also enjoyed the alien menace and their
signature move, the right uppercut. Clearly these aliens
were trained by Lennox Lewis. I did not know that the
right mix of cellphone and fire extinguisher could be made
into an incendiary time bomb. I'm gonna try that one
right now. I'm no astronaut, but should there be
earth-like gravity on a meteor hurtling through space? I
also can tell that the writers of the film are obviously huge
fans of Paul Bunyan. Our scientist, upon
discovering themselves on another planet in what I assume is
another galaxy, placed a dual antenna WiFi router next to a
walkie-talkie to 'boost the signal'. So help could
come. To another galaxy. Those dudes at Linksys
are geniuses. Believe that.
And besides, some of the special effects were actually pretty
good, especially when we zeroed in on the queen of these
aliens, Kelly Hu quite possibly could be hotter at 46 than she
was at 26, and this movie is a lasting testament to the
lunatic wielding a death dealing ax. 'Age of Tomorrow'
is a terrible movie… no doubt… but as usual, there's always
something in these things that at least makes it somewhat
watchable.
