Pretty Good

Expected more

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

THE ANOMALY is an extremely confusing low budget British science fiction film directed by and starring Noel Clarke. I like the man myself, I love some of his work, but when it comes to genre films he does seem to make some rubbish and this film's a good example of that. It comes across as a poorly-written rip-off of the Tom Cruise movie EDGE OF TOMORROW or perhaps SOURCE CODE and even after finishing watching it I still wasn't quite sure of what I'd watched.Clarke plays a soldier whose life is lived in nine minute intervals before it all goes hazy. During each nine minute segment he gradually learns that he's part of a sinister conspiracy aimed at world domination led by a sinister research institute. Clarke must battle against the bad guys and try to beat them at their own game in the time he has left.This nonsense is merely a background for the film's main focus which is the fight scenes. It feels like Clarke watched a whole bunch of DVDs starring the likes of Donnie Yen, Tony Jaa, and Jet Li, and thought "I'll have some of that". Sadly, these fights are repetitive and include some very poor choreography and stylistic effects, such as the super-slow motion which is utilised at possibly the worst times. Clarke is no martial artist, merely a street brawler, and there's no grace in these fights at all. He throws in some nudity and an old-timer role for Brian Cox, but the end result is still a mess whichever way you look at it.

What on earth happened in the end? And do these people know that a minute has only 60 seconds and not like 600? The minutes in this movie beat those of microwave, bakers and gym equipments. The real-life lessons: Don't owe money to people. Don't try to be a perfectionist. So not want deep or brain picking lessons in this movie that one could reflect on.Plausibility: very low. How can two people only create all this technology and have this advanced plan that seems to work well until you know the hero of the movie destroys it. Two people alone are not plausible, the movie should have shown the team, the crew, the supporters of whatever to make it more believable. Chatter analysis, development and depth: no character is deep enough. Some reasons for their behaviour are presented but they are not articulated enough to make us care about those reasons or at least understand them. Acting: why?!, why did they give Noel Clarke the leading role? I can't remember having seen worse acting in a very very long time. He is juts so antipathetical. He doesn't make you care about him at all. Ian Somerhalder was great but I must say seeing him in the role of the villain is a bit cliché and since he has done that (the role) for a very long time, his acting can't be called impressive. Plot/ Storytelling: I think the storyline is presented quite smartly. You don't know what is happening just like Ryan doesn't and with every episode you learn a bit more just like Ryan does. I liked this way of telling the story. What I did not like was the ending. Like when by chance in the last 10 seconds they discover the doctor so that they can kill him and get the hero ending. The fighting scenes.Oh dear. Worst fighting scenes I have ever seen in a movie. All the slowing for very unimpressive moves. They were just bad.

On the hunt for movies, I haven't seen yet - I came across some more unique ones- The Anomaly was one of them.The plot is interesting. It is a roller-coaster at first, and this is very likable. Though at the beginning, the movie suffers from pretty bad fighting scenes - it is not so much the fighting style, it is more continuous slow motions in really wrong timings. It is almost as the director just watched 300 and wanted to try out the technique. Not a so good idea (I have enjoyed 300 very much - however due to the epic format and better timings, the slow motions worked there far better). The fighting itself is not, what you see in blockbusters - though that doesn't mean that it is not good... I feel even more involved, as it is not extremely exaggerated. Yes - they could have done a better job - but it is definitely not one of the weaknesses of the movie.Kudos to the overall design. The flick has a futuristic look, (again) without being exaggerated and stupid. In this subject, I like the film more than a lot of Hollywood productions.Acting is adequate. Not that an A-list actor couldn't have brought more into it - but again, pretty much all actors are doing a quite good job and are believaable.Besides of the overdone slow-motions (which happen to occur less and less towards the end) - it is especially some inconsistencies in the storyboard which hurts though the believability. The main character has episodes of only 9min and 41sec (or so...) - to be himself in his body, however the actions what he does in every "episode" are far longer - often, it feels, that even the real time (oppose to the movie time) takes longer than 9 min - despite that some things (like bypassing a bigger area) are obviously not shown. You just start to wonder more and more... and basically it is not understandable - why did they just changed the length of the episode timings? Ah - yeah - the fixed time period as well is strange - it is explained that these episodes anyway happening, due to the uncommon frequent solar storms which disturb the signal of a satellite - though why does it then take exactly 10 minutes - are Solar storms always 9 min and 41 sec long. There are further inexplicable story points... Overall it is a good weekday film, which you can definitely enjoy. It is not a masterpiece - though some parts are so well done, that I wouldn't even consider it as B movie...

I'm seeing some mixed reviews on this so I'd thought I'd stop in and leave my two cents.Firstly... The action gets good. There are moments that clearly were matrix inspired and were as cool as it comes.Secondly... The mystery and watching the main character solve it was fantastic. The premise of waking up in random places with only 8 minutes to figure out why is a really cool one... Has a touch of Dark City if you would.The acting was fair enough, the choreography was well done, and anyone ranking this lower than a 6 clearly has wayyyyy too high expectations for movies.(Pats back.) "Get outside buddy. Take a walk once in a while. You don't have to hate something because it wasn't the best something ever."Regardless... Its not Avatar 2... But.Its worth a rent or a watch and is a great distraction for a Tuesday night.Ultimately, this was not a bad movie at all... Its great science fiction. So don't let a few bad reviews turn you off to a cool experience. You'll be missing out on some really great moments.N