Under the pretense of making that ever-elusive low budget gem, the "character-driven" movie, newbie feature writer/director Gareth Edwards slaps together a bland sci-fi movie that withers under its bait-and-switch romantic plot.
Poor little rich girl Sam (Whitney Able) is desperate to get out of Central America and back home to daddy in the states. Lucky for Sam, war photographer Andrew Kaulder (Scott McNairy) is working for her wealthy father and is only too happy to supervise her safe passage at all costs.
Stolen passports mean only land travel is an option. Problematically, alien creatures landed six-years ago and now occupy an "Infected Zone" between Mexico and the walled-off United States.
Taking its cue from "District 9" the movie postures itself as containing some amount of social commentary about illegal aliens and the political landscape of the future but there's no such follow-through to hang anything more than a generic sentiment on.
The much-referred-to monsters are rarely-glimpsed giant octopus creatures whose bark is worse than their bite. It turns out the real menace to peace on earth is that pesky U.S. military privatized war machine that's left Mexico looking like Baghdad. At least Sam and Andrew can sleep together; that makes everything fine. At least, that's what the filmmakers think.
Rated R. 94 mins.
