The Anomaly (2014) Review!!

Synopsis – A former soldier is taken captive and awakens in the back of a van where he learns that he only has a few moments to figure out how he got there.

My Take – Its an easy sell now days, to cast a popular TV actor, cast his face all over the promotions, in the process get a distributor & WOLAH your tricked into watching a mess of a movie! Here, Ian Somerhalder (The Vampire Diaries) is cast in a supporting role at best, with the proceedings focused on a lesser known actor Noel Clarke, who has also directed this sci fi feature.

The central idea of this film is almost interesting, well its a bit close to the Jason Bourne series with science fiction elements thrown in. Unfortunately that wouldn’t have particularly mattered if the film had its own sense of identity or style, which it does not! Judging by the trailers, I knew this was a low budget film, with acceptable low- budget special visuals & effects. However its hard to forgive the acting, total lack of direction and the use of every stereotype in the book (kind but troubled prostitute, Russian gangsters, cute kid with messy hair, end of the world philosophy etc). Even though the almost interesting premise did built up the suspense for a while, but once the suspense is out, the films resorts to becoming an anomaly itself (did u see what I just did there).

The performances are quite bad too, an actor like Brian Cox appears in a quite forgettable cameo, Luke Hemsworth (Chris Hemsworth’s 2nd brother) is lackluster, while Ian Somerhalder does his part well, being his charming usual, he looks to have walked straight out of TVD & totally underutilized. As a director, Noel Clarke seems confused, while as an actor he seems even more confused! On the whole The Anomaly seemed to have some potential, but the poor direction barely allowed the film to emerge from the colorful visuals & stereotype category it decided to nest into. Huge disappointment!