Beyond (2014)

Sadly Over-hyped

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The movie is surprisingly subdued in its pacing, its characterizations, and its go-for-broke sensibilities.

In a store somewhere in a city in England, Cole is trying to stop a robber, but doesn't quite succeed, so Michael's life is changed. We don't really follow Michael's story, but Michael keeps showing up. And as the attempted robbery is taking place, a news story on the TV tells about the light in the sky that is getting bigger.Cole is not really a pleasant person, but he meets Maya in a place of business where people drink, dance and have sex in costumes. Such as the woman dressed as Hitler and the man dressed as Jesus. Yes, at this point we get to laugh. And Maya is pretty and nice. She has a positive influence on Cole, a construction worker who hasn't done what he wanted in life. Meanwhile, the tabloid newspaper has a headline about the mysterious object. So will this object hit Earth and cause devastation? Cole and Maya discuss. Maya would prefer to just enjoy her final days, knowing it would all be over. At this point, no one can even say it will definitely hit, and even if we could be sure, would we prepare for it?Then the movie gets confusing. Cole is out in the country and seems lost. He hasn't eaten. There is a girl with red hair but she's not pretty like Maya. Later we find out her name is Maya. Eventually, we learn that some scenes are taking place "after" instead of "before" and it is dangerous to be out at night. "They" want to kill everyone. The only solution is to go to Norway with some other people, where it will never get dark. Until Winter. We'll figure out what to do about Winter when it happens.In the "before" scenes, news stories about the mystery object continue. Efforts to stop it fail. It IS heading toward Earth and is big enough to end all life. Maya is pregnant. But no one wants to have babies under the current circumstances. No one should. Also, no one is building, so Cole can't get work. As Maya makes her doctor visits, Cole and Michael meet again. And when the event is about to happen, things get quite complicated indeed.And "after", who can be trusted? Will they find the people they lost touch with? What will this weird man do?I was expecting yet another bad disaster movie. This is not what i got. This film wasn't so bad it was good. It was merely bad.That's not to say it wasn't quality work. I'm sure it was. It just didn't entertain me all that much. Paul Brannigan as the store clerk may have given the standout performance, in his later scenes. I didn't remember who he was until the comment was made by Cole about the incident in the store.Maybe you'll like it. But it's not one of these bad dsiaster movies.

While I was initially invested in Cole and Maya's budding relationship, I too quickly became tired and irritated by their constant bickering while waiting for the sci-fi element to kick in to full gear...which it never does. There are a few tense moments where you get a taste for what this movie could have been and then? The most unforgivable, cheap, lame plot device!!! It was all a dream/hallucination! There were NO ALIENS!!!! Absolute waste of two hours of my life if, you, like me were drawn into the film by the the synopsis' promise of a "struggle to survive in a world where the human population has been left decimated after an extra-terrestrial attack".

*********************SPOILER ALERT!*********************He's like on the floor and bleeding. She calls and says the ship is breaking apart, and she's just had the baby girl. But also, he's looking at the ship from the hillside at shore, holding a picture of the baby and she's missing.The store cashier who got shot and later shoots the lead character has a shirt with silhouettes of the spaceship on it and he recites everything that the lead remembers anyone saying for the past two years. Even the stain on the lead's shirt is a bloody image of the space ship. Two alternate realities offered for his choosing?Thank goodness it is streaming! I need to watch it again to make sure I understand it. That is not a good thing to have to do.It's like EVERY human being had a chance to choose their reality. Apparently, most chose Norway?

If i could sum it up in a sentence, this movie has a terrible plot line and a misleading title but has good acting. I was expecting a movie to be about alien invasion, but the entire movie was about the personal life of a couple with issues. The only references to the extraterrestrial beings were essentially their floating ships. Their floating ships would just hover around doing essentially nothing. There were random dead people everywhere... The movie went back into time, went into the present, into the future, back and forth every 7-10 minutes.Not worth my Friday night, i kept expecting something to get better, but half way through the movie i started skipping forward and found that literally nothing significant happens in this movie.