The latest addition to the welcome collection of movies that see the citizens of Earth defend themselves from alien threat is Revolt, that arrives on DVD in the UK today.
Starring Lee Pace, Jason Flemyng and Berenice Marlohe, in this case a small group of survivors are left to fight for human survival in the countryside of South Africa. It has to be said that their odds aren’t good though, with the alien threat all around them. Not that that’s stopped people in films before.
For they can always take inspiration from how the movies have dealt with the threat of aliens in the past. Here are just a few of the discs they can pick up from their local HMV that could help them with their endeavours…
SPOILERS FOR: Edge Of Tomorrow, Independence Day, Mars Attacks!, The Avengers.
1. Repeat until complete
Comfortably one of Tom Cruise’s finest movies of recent times, Edge Of Tomorrow has impressive aliens, and a hero who starts off as a PR man, getting roundly slaughtered. If at first you don’t succeed, though, take some Groundhog Day pills and live the same day over and over and over and over again until you get it right. Whilst the survivors of Revolt don’t have that as an option (they’re in a mix of Terminator and Independence Day), it sort-of-worked for Tom Cruise. That’s the joy of being a movie star, right? Lee Pace might want to have a word…
2. Martian/l arts
Beyond Skyline is a sequel that’s taken it’s time coming to the screen, a follow-up to the not-great 2010 alien invasion original. The sequel, though, determinedly rights the wrongs of said original, by shopping around several genres of movie to try and take down the alien threat concerned. It settles ultimateloy on hiring The Raid’s Iko Uwais to take the fight – metaphorically and literally – to the invaders. Ass starts to get kicked from that point onwards…
3. Play’em some music
Playing things on the lighter side was Tim Burton’s anarchic Mars Attacks! (a movie that was being made around the same time as Independence Day, and wasn’t, as many suggest, a reaction to it), that sees an invasion from Mars wiping out some of Hollywood’s top talent. The solution? Just pop a bit of Slim Whitman on the record player – specifically Indian Love Call – and watch those Martian heads go pop…
4. Just smash stuff up
Come the denouement of Marvel’s first The Avengers movie (Avengers Assemble in the UK, of course), there are special effects creations popping out of the sky, and a bunch of heroes in the middle of New York City trying to stop them. Said heroes do the only logical thing, and form a circle, so that the camera can zoom around them and make them look impressive for the trailer. No grit, lots of gloss, and one great big scrap. Top stuff.
Given Lee Pace’s Guardians Of The Galaxy role, perhaps he should recruit some more chums should Revolt 2 come along…
5. Malware
The granddaddy of the how-to-take-down-aliens subgenre, the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day was infamous for having an amazing build up, and a guffaw-inducing WTF resolution. This one involves alien technology, a computer virus, and the ability to upload one to the other. Revolt certainly takes some cues from Independence Day, but it has a much better ending….!
If all that’s whetted your appetite from more alien bashing, the trailer for Revolt is right here…