Energy beings invade Moscow but American youngsters will save us all!

What we liked:

- For once the action isn’t set in Los Angeles, but in Moscow as some American twentysomethingers find themselves slap bang in the middle of a full-scale alien invasion by energy beings. So cue some nice touristy shots of Red Square and the like . . .

- The aliens are energy beings, which is a welcome change from your generic H.R. Giger “inspired” style beasties.

- Special effects aren’t great, but not that bad either.

What we didn’t like:

- Not enough is made of the Moscow settings. It would have been more effective if it had been set in winter time. See producer Timur Bekmambetov’s Night Watch movies on how to effectively make use of gritty Moscow settings.

- It’s cheesy, especially the silly second half with our band of Russian “resistance fighters”.

- Plot logic, or lack of it. While our heroes cower in fear of the aliens in a basement, other people conveniently figure out how to fight the aliens and build a “microwave gun” (or whatever) to defeat them. Yeah, right . . .

- Wait! A group of youngsters fleeing alien invaders? Haven’t we seen this before? Wasn’t it called Cloverfield and Skyline the first few times around?

- Suddenly everybody speaks English! We live in Kiev and believe me: almost no-one speaks English here! When one thinks about it our American heroes are also “aliens” and more could have been done with that angle story-wise.

- It’s the Syfy Channel Movie of the Week, but with a bigger budget and better locales.

- If we want sci-fi action from Russia then perhaps isn’t it time for someone to film Dmitry Glukhovsky’s Metro 2033 novel instead?