Oh my Goodness was this movie dull. It looks like it had some amount of money thrown at it, but I assure you, every penny was wasted. It's like the kind of movie you would get if you asked a 9 year old boy to come up with a movie idea, and just did exactly everything they wrote.
So, let's put aside the superficial things and focus on the *AHEM* story to begin with.
The intro tells us there has been a war with robots (who just appeared from no-where) and we lost. We don't get to see any of that war, just hear a bunch of screaming and so on, but that's just as well because most of the movie takes place in a town that looks like it hasn't been touched at all. I guess it was a war where we didn't fight all that hard, or launch any nukes. You would think there would be a few burned out cars, craters, and smashed up buildings, but nope, it's like nothing happened at all.
OK, so assuming that unlikely premise, now we find out that every person who is left has had some sort of LED shower faucet illuminater placed just on the side of their heads. The occupation follows the main "rule" of the robots which is that nobody can go out of the house. Its a kind of curfew and we are shown from the markings on the wall that it must have been many months since the robots arrived and imposed it. Even though no-one can go outside, somehow people haven't all starved to death yet or died from the radiation of the melting down nuclear plants, or from lack of water, or disease, all of which would quickly kill a population interred in their own homes all day long. So back to the faucet LED. This thing allows the robots to track where all the humans are at any time, because the giant flaming robot cubes and interstellar robot war fleet is not able to do that on its own. We are shown some "baddies" who have thrown their lot in with the robots, who have the ability to wander around as they please and also turn off robots when they want to. Again, since the robots have already overtaken the whole world, there isn't really a need for those people, but they are necessary for the "story" so whatever.
The "story" focuses on a family of boys trying to find their father. They are able to leave their house after they find out they can de- activate the LED faucets with electricity, (because no-one in the sciences, army or government thought of that yet.)
You would think this would lead them on an exciting adventure through the war-torn streets, encountering the desperate plight of a subjugated people, hiding at every corner from robot planes and the giant walking robots, and trying to basically survive.
No, that doesn't happen, instead, they just wander from implausible plot point to even more implausible plot point, such as an English pub where a boxing match is going on and everyone is drinking and having fun (apparently the don't leave your home curfew doesn't affect beer).It's as if following a happy meal pirate treasure map than trying to survive in occupied territory. Trying to find their lost father in the world's most boring fetch quest. Of course none of these weak children get killed or hurt along the way as they encounter the numerous hyper-advanced robotic forces that defeated everything on Earth in 11 days. Not so much as a plaster was needed because the heroes have impenetrable main character armour.
This isn't really a spoiler to reveal what happens in the end, because I am in fact saving you the 120 minutes or so of your life you would lose from watching this miserable piece of trash.
So, i'm just going to reveal it.
One of the boys has unexplained magic that lets him control robots nearby. He uses this to command the robots to do their "shut down" animation sequence and turn into cubes and boxes. Eventually he is able to destroy the bigger ones, such as the flying fortresses and the cubes, because things like the flying fortress conveniently has a shower LED access point directly on the front prong so he can stand on it and look cool as they play the heroic music in the background. So, through his unexplainable magic he is able to defeat the robots in about 5 minutes that took over the whole of the planet without resistance during 11 days versus all the worlds armies. And yay, everyone's happy because he re-united with his father in the end, who helped out in a world war 1 era plane that was inexplicably impervious to futuristic robot plasma cannons. The robots found it interesting that the boy could capture and control other robot systems, but didn't consider it a high enough priority to send every single robot to exterminate him. I think they put out a memo or something, but by then it was too late.
So, to wrap up the other things:
the music... it's OK I guess.
the special effects... well, I personally know animators who have done better, but its not the worst either. It's not the thing that lets down this movie. They are slightly better than the tripods from the BBC, but only slightly.
The cast.. apparently the woman from x files was in this movie, go figure.
All in all... i would only recommend this if there was no other movie on the planet left to watch, and that includes the ones where Eddie Murphy pretends to be fat people.
So, let's put aside the superficial things and focus on the *AHEM* story to begin with.
The intro tells us there has been a war with robots (who just appeared from no-where) and we lost. We don't get to see any of that war, just hear a bunch of screaming and so on, but that's just as well because most of the movie takes place in a town that looks like it hasn't been touched at all. I guess it was a war where we didn't fight all that hard, or launch any nukes. You would think there would be a few burned out cars, craters, and smashed up buildings, but nope, it's like nothing happened at all.
OK, so assuming that unlikely premise, now we find out that every person who is left has had some sort of LED shower faucet illuminater placed just on the side of their heads. The occupation follows the main "rule" of the robots which is that nobody can go out of the house. Its a kind of curfew and we are shown from the markings on the wall that it must have been many months since the robots arrived and imposed it. Even though no-one can go outside, somehow people haven't all starved to death yet or died from the radiation of the melting down nuclear plants, or from lack of water, or disease, all of which would quickly kill a population interred in their own homes all day long. So back to the faucet LED. This thing allows the robots to track where all the humans are at any time, because the giant flaming robot cubes and interstellar robot war fleet is not able to do that on its own. We are shown some "baddies" who have thrown their lot in with the robots, who have the ability to wander around as they please and also turn off robots when they want to. Again, since the robots have already overtaken the whole world, there isn't really a need for those people, but they are necessary for the "story" so whatever.
The "story" focuses on a family of boys trying to find their father. They are able to leave their house after they find out they can de- activate the LED faucets with electricity, (because no-one in the sciences, army or government thought of that yet.)
You would think this would lead them on an exciting adventure through the war-torn streets, encountering the desperate plight of a subjugated people, hiding at every corner from robot planes and the giant walking robots, and trying to basically survive.
No, that doesn't happen, instead, they just wander from implausible plot point to even more implausible plot point, such as an English pub where a boxing match is going on and everyone is drinking and having fun (apparently the don't leave your home curfew doesn't affect beer).It's as if following a happy meal pirate treasure map than trying to survive in occupied territory. Trying to find their lost father in the world's most boring fetch quest. Of course none of these weak children get killed or hurt along the way as they encounter the numerous hyper-advanced robotic forces that defeated everything on Earth in 11 days. Not so much as a plaster was needed because the heroes have impenetrable main character armour.
This isn't really a spoiler to reveal what happens in the end, because I am in fact saving you the 120 minutes or so of your life you would lose from watching this miserable piece of trash.
So, i'm just going to reveal it.
One of the boys has unexplained magic that lets him control robots nearby. He uses this to command the robots to do their "shut down" animation sequence and turn into cubes and boxes. Eventually he is able to destroy the bigger ones, such as the flying fortresses and the cubes, because things like the flying fortress conveniently has a shower LED access point directly on the front prong so he can stand on it and look cool as they play the heroic music in the background. So, through his unexplainable magic he is able to defeat the robots in about 5 minutes that took over the whole of the planet without resistance during 11 days versus all the worlds armies. And yay, everyone's happy because he re-united with his father in the end, who helped out in a world war 1 era plane that was inexplicably impervious to futuristic robot plasma cannons. The robots found it interesting that the boy could capture and control other robot systems, but didn't consider it a high enough priority to send every single robot to exterminate him. I think they put out a memo or something, but by then it was too late.
So, to wrap up the other things:
the music... it's OK I guess.
the special effects... well, I personally know animators who have done better, but its not the worst either. It's not the thing that lets down this movie. They are slightly better than the tripods from the BBC, but only slightly.
The cast.. apparently the woman from x files was in this movie, go figure.
All in all... i would only recommend this if there was no other movie on the planet left to watch, and that includes the ones where Eddie Murphy pretends to be fat people.