Movie number two of that seemingly productive weekend.  Nothing else was on and why not – Ian Somerhalder was on the poster and all the press released buzz about the movie was that it was high sci-fi.  That’s basically all I knew about the film going in and in retrospect, those probably weren’t enough to make sound decisions.

Here’s my round-up of Noel Clarke (Adulthood)’s The Anomaly.

Please note that there may be spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

Ryan (Noel Clarke – Doctor Who), a war veteran suffering from PTSD, suddenly finds himself in the middle of a cemetery, where he sees a young boy, Alex (Art Parkinson – Game of Thrones), apparently fleeing from abductors.  Ryan can’t remember how he got there but being the decent man the he is, decides to help Alex escape his pursuers.  All goes well until Alex sees a mask peeking out of Ryan’s pocket and starts screaming that Ryan was one of the men who killed his mother.  Ryan blacks out and when he comes to, he finds himself face to face with a man he later learns to be Harkin Langham (Ian Somerhalder – The Vampire Diaries ), son of the psychiatrist who was helping him with his PTSD, Dr. Langham (Brian Cox – X2).  Ryan doesn’t understand why Harkin is speaking to him so familiarly, talking about how the ‘plan’ was well on its way to completion; he’s never met the man in his life.  Ryan tries to go with it but Harkin must have realized that something was right – by the way he must’ve been asking about Alex – and stabs him with a tranquilizer, saying that these ten-minute spells should decrease as time goes by.  The next time Ryan wakes up, he is in bed with Dana (Alexis Knapp – Pitch Perfect), a prostitute employed by the Russians who is compassionate enough, but loathe to help him in his search both for Alex and for an explanation as to what’s happening to him.

THE GOOD:

1. Alexis Knapp is super pretty!  I can’t believe it took me a long time to recognize her as Stacie from Pitch Perfect, although to be fair the role probably couldn’t be anymore different.
   
2. Ian Somerhalder did a nice enough job as Harkin, the tortured son who can never live up to his father’s expectations.  Most of his tricks were most likely borrowed from his TV role, but hey, he’s good at playing rich, smug and handsome jerks so it all works out in the end.
   
3. The plot was actually kind of good.  It definitely delivered in the sci-fi front and the plot was written well enough that there weren’t very many plot holes.  I can imagine this plot being a good story for a paperback.

THE BAD:

1. It looked low-budget.  It probably was, but the suits were ill-fitting and most of the scenes were shot at back allies.  It’s a shame because the plot was interesting and could’ve been enhanced had there been enough money to make the setting been more futuristic.  All in all it looked cheap.
2. The slow pacing.  It just took too long to get there, you know?  That style probably would have worked if the medium was through a novel, because the twists and turns would’ve come as a nice shock, but cinematically it didn’t really work because there wasn’t enough details given for us to care about Ryan or Alex to pay enough attention to what was happening to them on screen.

THE UGLY:

1. Noel Clarke.  Okay, I liked him as Mickey in Doctor Who but he just doesn’t have what it takes to play the lead in an action star.  He’s buff, yes, but he’s too bulky for it to be believable that he can move quickly enough to kick anybody’s ass.  I had no idea that he was even directing movies but in this case it was painfully obvious that he took measures to make himself look as cool as possible and it was a bit sad.
   
2. Those ridiculous slow motion fight scenes with the stupid music.  Seriously, what the fuck was that about?  I had to roll my eyes at the amateurishness of it all.  Even the B-movies from the 80’s had better fight sequences than that.
3. False advertising.  Yet again, I fell victim to the marketing ploy of putting a (relatively) famous actor’s mug all over a poster, thinking that the majority of the movie would have said (relatively) famous actor in it, only to find that an infinitely less famous person would be carrying the brunt of the acting weight.  Case in point.

All in all The Anomaly should’ve been a good movie but budget constraints and the decision of the director to star in his own film were definitely detrimental.   Although the plot was good, and certain performances were okay, there was just no saving it from the fact that it was being led by an actor who had very little star power.

THE VERDICT: 5/10.

*All photos are lifted from the film’s IMDB page.