Asian movies are constantly improving in visual style and special effects. Many of them nowadays reaching Hollywood-budget quality. Returner is one of those, however looks and style does not a good movie make.
In the future humanity is waging war against an Alien species called "Daggra" by the humans. One of them faked a crash-landing on earth, and then their armies attacked and destroyed almost everything. Now a few desperate survivors have built a time machine. With this they plan on sending a troop of soldiers back in time to kill the original alien before the war can even start.
What strikes me most about this movie is all it's influences. And don't get me wrong here, i don't mind movies taking influences from others. Mixing influences from other movies with original moves is usually a good idea. The problem here is that once you remove the influences there is not much left to originality... The main influences that are plainly visible is E.T., Independence Day and The Matrix for the action sequences. The problem with movies like this one is that the feeling is always in the back of your mind that you have seen all of this before.
That being said i can state though that i enjoyed this movie somewhat despite it's flaws. Because it uses the different influences to create a story that is not unique, but at least entertaining. The special effects are nicely done, as are the action scenes. Also i found the characters quite entertaining, especially the evil mastermind Mizoguchi who is wonderfully sinister.
All in all this is not too shabby. With a few more ideas of their own and a tighter script this could have been really good. Now it's more an entertaining patchwork of things we've seen before. Not a waste of time, but not a must-see either. I rate it 6/10.
In the future humanity is waging war against an Alien species called "Daggra" by the humans. One of them faked a crash-landing on earth, and then their armies attacked and destroyed almost everything. Now a few desperate survivors have built a time machine. With this they plan on sending a troop of soldiers back in time to kill the original alien before the war can even start.
What strikes me most about this movie is all it's influences. And don't get me wrong here, i don't mind movies taking influences from others. Mixing influences from other movies with original moves is usually a good idea. The problem here is that once you remove the influences there is not much left to originality... The main influences that are plainly visible is E.T., Independence Day and The Matrix for the action sequences. The problem with movies like this one is that the feeling is always in the back of your mind that you have seen all of this before.
That being said i can state though that i enjoyed this movie somewhat despite it's flaws. Because it uses the different influences to create a story that is not unique, but at least entertaining. The special effects are nicely done, as are the action scenes. Also i found the characters quite entertaining, especially the evil mastermind Mizoguchi who is wonderfully sinister.
All in all this is not too shabby. With a few more ideas of their own and a tighter script this could have been really good. Now it's more an entertaining patchwork of things we've seen before. Not a waste of time, but not a must-see either. I rate it 6/10.