Unidentified (2013)

Waste of time

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

I stumbled across this movie on Prime and thoroughly enjoyed it. I agree with the Refreshing! review by Petrino. Only thing is I give it a higher rating, 10 stars. It grabbed my attention right at the outset and held it firmly for the full 90 minutes. It starts out as a road comedy with some pretty funny goings-on and escalates gradually into twisted sci-fi desert insanity. I've seen a lot of movies like this that don't work, so it's a real achievement when you see one as good as this one is. The story is a little meandering, but I found that to be part of its charm. The actors are all quite good in situations both hilarious and horrifying. As Petrino says, you feel like you're with real people with authentic relationships, nothing's forced. The Las Vegas scenes are really quite humorous, with real threatening characters breaking up the central characters' plans. The guy that plays the youngest member of the quartet, Erik Artell as Jodie, bears a slight resemblance to Topher Grace of That 70s Show, and his clueless but imaginative innocence adds a lot of fun to the proceedings. His ideas about creating a YouTube show are pretty wild. Eddie Mui is terrific as Nick the gambler on a losing streak being heckled by his wife (for good reason). And Parry Shen and Colton Dunn as Jeremy and Dave are right in there with the action and the laughs. There's one scene in Vegas where the dung hits the fan and everybody's freaking out, but Dunn tiptoes fast through the shot with an impish expression on his face that's priceless but totally in character. Real good special visual effects too. I really liked this movie a lot and I wish the filmmakers well. I hope they make more movies. And I don't agree at all with the negative reviews here that give it low ratings. Thumbs up here! Take a chance on it.

This movie, an obvious indie film, had great potential. The premise is actually good. Being stuck out in the middle of the desert some miles out from Las Vegas, with possible aliens stalking you, is an interesting starting point. The problem is that it wasn't used as a starting point. For whatever reason, the writer of this movie filled the first three-forths of the script with some of the most boring and irritating dialog I've ever witnessed. The actors did their best, the direction didn't stray towards horrible. It's just the writing was notorious. After about 50 or so minutes, the movie actually gets fairly good. It's never great, although the final scene (flying through the air) was actually very well done. It almost seems as if this was meant to be a short film, and someone got a greenlight to make it feature length, but they had no idea how to do that, so they just told the actors to ad-lib and do their best. My suggestion, literally, is to fast- forward to about the 45 minute mark and go from there.

I actually loved this film. It doesn't wear out it's welcome. These guys obviously had a low budget but some scenes made it look like they had seven figures. I don't even like found footage films but I genuinely enjoyed this film from beginning to end. I find that most found footage flicks fall short when it comes to having natural dialogue and reactions to what is going on but this is definitely doesn't have that problem. When you watch you feel like you're watching real people with a genuine relationship with one another rather than four people acting with forced dialogue. Is it close and counters? No, but Its a hell of a lot better than most indie films coming out these days, especially found footage. Its just a fun ride with something for everyone. There are a lot of laughs, a gross out scene or two, some genuine scares, and AWESOME special fx. The film makers obviously worked hard and did a very good job on a shoestring budget. Its something I'm going to share with my friends and it was DEFINITELY worth my time. It reminds me of a Detroit Rock City type of flick. I don't think that movie is for everybody but the people who LOVE it LOVE it and show their friends. I went from renting this one, to owning it immediately afterward. Worth a watch if you're a movie nerd who likes aliens or group adventure films.

I tried to like this film, I really did. It started off well and it promised to be fun, but as it progressed, it dragged badly.It's an odd film in that it is almost two separate films joined together. The first half is a comedic road trip film. There were no segments in this part of the film that were done poorly, but there were just way too many segments. The bits and scenes just rambled on without going anywhere or adding to the story. This rambling did allow for some character development and set an overall tone, but I think the same result could have been had with better editing. The first half might have been actually good if it had been cut in half.The second half of the film (almost to the minute) becomes more serious as trouble starts to befall the group of friends. The film really falls apart in the second half. The Blair Witch style filming worked in the first half but gets silly and implausible in the second half...not to mention down right annoying as the film limps to its conclusion. There aren't as many pointless scenes in the second half, but most of them are too drawn out. The reactions and motivations of the characters seems unrealistic for the most part. Even though the phenomenon that these guys witness is the point of the movie, the script can't seem to convey any sense of awe or horror. It's almost like the writers knew they had nothing and were stretching film time to connect to the ending. The end scene, overall, is interesting, but the Blair Witch hand held camera becomes truly irritating. While the ending scenes are mildly interesting, they don't do much to answer any questions. I think the filmmakers were going for tantalizing but got unfulfilling instead.If I hadn't decided to write a review of this film (no one had reviewed it yet), I doubt I would have watched the whole thing. I think this might have made a good short film instead of a feature length film; maybe there's no money in making shorts.