Commissar Danilovsky

Browsing Netflix videos, I decided to actually watch this one because of the "alien invasion" theme. The opening scenes showing a dark and menacing alien spaceship hovering over the gleaming white skyscrapers of Abu Dhabi seemed to indicate the rest of the movie might be an interesting science fiction adventure. It wasn't. The acting was wooden and amateurish. The setting -- inside a house filled with eye-catching statuary, didn't seem to fit the characters, a young husband and crippled wife. Not even the uncertainty of an alien invasion seemed to excite any of the characters. They seemed overly calm and unconcerned, especially given the dire and unusual circumstances. I kept watching the movie only because I thought the actress who portrayed the wife, Ana Druzhynina, was cute. The plot however, quickly became boring, plodding, and the relationship between the two main characters seemed contrived and strained. There seemed to be no on-screen chemistry between the young couple. Other characters were equally one-dimensional and uninteresting. Just when I considered either turning off the television or watching another movie, there was a sudden and all-too-brief appearance by an alien figure accompanied by cheesy sound and visual effects. Every few minutes, another alien appearance would bring with it the hope of a bit of excitement -- and the disappointment made me realize that continuing to watch this movie was a waste of time. Finally, at the sixty-five minute mark, I couldn't stand it any more and so I turned off my television and went to bed! Some really bad movie offerings seems to plague Netflix and I'm not at all sure why they chose to waste precious bandwidth streaming poor quality junk like this.