Director: Egor Baranov, Nathalia Hencker
Writer: Ilya Kulikov (Screenplay)
Starring: Aleksey Chadov, Pyotr Fyodorov, Svetlana Ivanova, Lukerya Ilyashenko, Kseniya Kutepova
Plot: Life on Earth is rapidly destroyed except for a small area in Eastern Europe.
Runtime: 2 Hours 7 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: The Blackout: Invasion Earth starts in the near future when a sudden blackout over the major cities occurs, the people die and the communication between the countries is gone. The Russian military is looking to investigate what is happening to their country within the blackout sites, Oleg (Chadov) leads his unit with Yuriy (Fyodorov) and a camera crew Olga (Ivanova) to learn what is happening in the blackout spots, after previous crews when missing, with one soldier having a deeper connection to what happened, with a warning from an unknown figure.
Thoughts on The Blackout: Invasion Earth
Characters – Oleg is one of the soldiers that gets bought in to fight against the unknown enemy, he gets injured but it always going to be fighting for his men and stop the enemy coming to cause a major threat on everyone in the world. Olga is the press member who is recording the footage of the missions, she will get up close and personal looking for the truth, bringing a more human approach to everything going on. Alyona is the medical soldier that Oleg met before the incident and now needs help from during the attack. We do meet the military officers having to make the big decisions along with the visitors as we learn what they want from Earth.
Performances – The performances in the film are strong through the film, we get the military characters, the human factors and the mysterious visitors that will each offer up a different position for the actors to bring to life.
Story – The story here follows a group of soldiers that need to learn the effects of a mysterious alien attack, which will see them facing a new enemy, with a bigger reason for their visit. This story is very big, it will take focus on the unknown, while borrowing from other massive sci-fi movies with the use a visitor that has been bought to bring a bigger reality to the world. The unknown is what makes the story stand out, where the military is doing all they can to survive knowing they are looking to save their loved ones from something that they can’t defend against. We will be get left with a bigger issue by the end of the film, dealing with moral questions about what to do next.
Action/Sci-Fi – The action is massive with the military fights along with the massive horde like attacks, which will have the sci-fi invasion elements about them.
Settings – The film uses a lot of the aftermath of attacks to show the destroyed cities for the action sequences.
Special Effects – The effects in the film are strong, showing us just how the alien figure will stand out and look different in the world, even giving a shocking reveal.
Scene of the Movie – The rooftop encounter.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Some of the military unit side of things does seem like filled compared to the bigger picture going on.
Final Thoughts – The Blackout: Invasion Earth is an ambitiously big sci-fi that has big action and big moral questions going on throughout.
THE BLACKOUT: INVASION EARTH WILL BE RELEASED ON 28th DECEMBER ON BLU-RAY, DVD AND DIGITAL PLATFORMS