The Day the Earth Stopped

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Year:	2008
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	C. Thomas Howell
Genre:	Mockbuster hokum
Starring:	C. Thomas Howell, Sinead McCafferty, Judd Nelson, Darren Dalton
Rating:	3/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1290471/
Tagline:	By night they will come, by day we will be gone.
Favourite line:	"If you can show me that there is value in human life, the destruction can be stopped. Prove this to me, and there will be a tomorrow."

Ahh, The Asylum.
Ahh, C. Thomas Howell, you've just got to love 'em.
The mockbuster is alive and well and in competent hands as, here, Howell dishes up a nonsensical, ramshackle tale of sub-par Star Trek alien invasion that will entertain as much as it confounds.

The plot:
A male and female alien, apparently sent from one of the enormous robotic devices that have landed in all of the Earth's major cities, are captured by square jawed military sorts, and beaten up for a bit.
One of the soldiers - writer / director Howell - takes exception to this, particularly the mistreatment of the big-titted female, and decides to go renegade, saving her from the ordeal. As she gradually begins to trust him, she reveals the true purpose of the alien visitation: to provide mankind one opportunity to prove their worthiness, else face annihilation.

Heh, this is an Asylum film, so we expect dreadful effects and piss poor acting and, for the most part, they are present and correct. What we do not expect is a score that is actually energising, nor a directorial performance that must rank as Howell's all time career high. You know, at times, I actually found myself enjoying this, actually found myself drawn into the story and, clearly, this really pissed me off. This is an Asylum movie: It's meant to be shit.
That being said, this could all be explained away by my peculiarites as the person I was watching it with described it as 'an assault on their humanity.'
Fair point, I guess, and something The Asylum may wish to put on any promotional material they produce from this point forward.
Massively cheap, massively derivative, but certainly not as bad as it should be, I suspect I would prefer this to the Keanu Reeves mega-movie this cashed in on.