Really good U.F.O. movies are like hen's teeth. They are talked about but no one actually sees them. Heck even documentaries on the subject raise the art of "beating a dead horse" to, mostly, boring levels. So, when a movie about that most elusive, yet often seen phenomenon comes out I usually am a sucker to bite.
U.F.O. is refreshingly different from the start. It doesn't depend on bombast or over-the-top C.G.I. In fact it takes the opposite approach. Derek, a high-achieving collegiate mathematician becomes obsessed with an airport daylight sighting by a mass of both professionals and lay people. He has his reasons and they are fairly plebeian and in no way over-cooked too lending just the right bit of reality to his otherwise almost "too pushy" quest to find some truth.
Alex Sharp as the brain in overdrive Derek really carries the film. He is ably supported, but wisely modestly, by a love interest (Ella Purnell as Natalie), a hard-boiled academia professor (Gillian Anderson as Dr. Hendricks), and government shill (David Strathaim as Franklin Ahis). The tight cast represents, along with the news media, all of the crucial elements of all U.F.O. sightings from the forties right up to today without pushing into anything too conspiratorial or hard to buy into. This is the stage for a good story and a driven young man whose smarts are up to the mystery. As I watched the movie I kept thinking to myself this parallels a real sighting of several years ago and bonds on a very decent fictional story that fits nicely. When the credits roll the not too thinly disguised real event is acknowledged which I think is a fantastic touch. This is one entertaining fun U.F.O. movie that doesn't insult in any way. I recommend it without reservation for U.F.O. fans (a 7 for us) and guardedly for all others (less perhaps a 5.5 to 6 rating).
U.F.O. is refreshingly different from the start. It doesn't depend on bombast or over-the-top C.G.I. In fact it takes the opposite approach. Derek, a high-achieving collegiate mathematician becomes obsessed with an airport daylight sighting by a mass of both professionals and lay people. He has his reasons and they are fairly plebeian and in no way over-cooked too lending just the right bit of reality to his otherwise almost "too pushy" quest to find some truth.
Alex Sharp as the brain in overdrive Derek really carries the film. He is ably supported, but wisely modestly, by a love interest (Ella Purnell as Natalie), a hard-boiled academia professor (Gillian Anderson as Dr. Hendricks), and government shill (David Strathaim as Franklin Ahis). The tight cast represents, along with the news media, all of the crucial elements of all U.F.O. sightings from the forties right up to today without pushing into anything too conspiratorial or hard to buy into. This is the stage for a good story and a driven young man whose smarts are up to the mystery. As I watched the movie I kept thinking to myself this parallels a real sighting of several years ago and bonds on a very decent fictional story that fits nicely. When the credits roll the not too thinly disguised real event is acknowledged which I think is a fantastic touch. This is one entertaining fun U.F.O. movie that doesn't insult in any way. I recommend it without reservation for U.F.O. fans (a 7 for us) and guardedly for all others (less perhaps a 5.5 to 6 rating).