samkan EARTHLING, though obviously low budget begins with a curious patience, holding back, etc. About a half hour into the movie, I was optimistic that I would be getting a more cerebral, subtle take on the "aliens among us" genre. The sparse dialog, low key characters and mundane setting set me up for a "thinker" flick devoid of the clichés attached to the traditional "They are here!" junk. Though EARTHLING neither falls apart nor totally sells out, it does cave-in to the inevitable contrivances. It's as if the screenwriter simply got tired and needed to finish up without time for his original vision. The female lead, it should be noted, is very intriguing and manages to hold the film together to some degree. If EARTHLING had finished what it started (and had twenty minutes shaved) it could've amounted to something.

dtempleton-1 Do you ever feel like you just don't fit in? Maybe we all do, and maybe there's a good reason. Earthling uses a sci-fi context to explore this sociological situation. Sure the sci-fi constructions are stereotypes... the slug that occupies the brain is straight out of vintage Star Treck, and the space probe seen in the introduction (in black and white) could have come from Buck Rogers. What the director is saying is that this doesn't matter to the story, that the story takes place at a deeper level. As the story evolves, it is aided by strong performances by the two female leads that reflect love, doubt, and duplicity. The male characters and actors are significantly weaker. As above, the effects are not the strength, it is the inner dialog and conflict that matters. The main character makes a journey of a lifetime without moving very far at all, and we come to empathize with a creature that is not at all human, yet reflects us all. 4 out of 5.

diggus doggus THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERSThis film is a pseudo sci-fi story about a woman who finds out - slowly - that she is in fact an alien; Earthling begins with a sequence aboard an orbital space station, with a mysterious object coming close to it and bringing chaos to the station - a lone survivor goes mad, calling mission control and telling them to "stay away" and "do not try to rescue us". Setting the tone for hard-core sci-fi, the real film begins with Judith, a college teacher, who is in hospital following a car crash - of which she does not remember, apparently because of her long-standing epilepsy. Lost in the car crash was also her unborn baby, which puts Judith in a period of extreme grief and near hallucinations. During this self-destructive period, Judith begins to realise that "something is not right", and a new character is introduced to quicken the pace and guide the protagonist towards the realisation that she is in fact an alien - and so are many others - living "in disguise" on earth.Now.. for the review. Earthling has at least two great points i can think of: it's acted superbly - we're not talking Hollywood tripe here, more like Tolstoy than Bay - and it's got a striking soundtrack. Yes, i myself hate when a soundtrack is given such importance - after all, films are visual, and a soundtrack should add to the product, not be so prominent as to become an entity of itself - but together with the strong acting Earthling manages to create a truly intense atmosphere of anxiety and expectation. And unfortunately, this is where it all goes wrong - the atmosphere works against the film.After all the plot points have been laid down, circa 50 minutes in, the great expectations of sci-fi awesomeness are shattered when the film runs dry. I see how Earthling must have been someone's great first project and as that it's great, yet not perfect; one part of the filmmaker's job is to make sure that there is enough plot to keep the story going, and here there just isn't. The Astronaut's Wife saved the juicy bits for the last five minutes and it was a failure; The Man from Earth instead understood that if you don't have anymore sci-fi content, it's a good choice to move along and change the pace. Unfortunately Earthling doesn't do that, but tries to stick with the sci-fi theme even when the story calls for some serious eye-candy bonanza, of which there is none, and that's the end of the story.Good direction, short-changed story, mediocre production, superb acting (if traditional), and a mesmerising soundtrack, worth a watch for anyone who is into filmmaking;My final vote, 6/10 - watch it.

Netjer-y-khet This movie is a disjointed mishmash of things that don't make sense: a meaningless opening, constant, meaningless flashbacks and cuts so big you could sail the Queen Mary through them. Depressing background music. Pointless scenes with no rhyme or reason. Fundamental ideas that we've all seen before - obsessive drawing of pictures from Close Encounters, and symbiotes from Stargate, for example.The holes in the dialog were so big that at one point I had to rewind to watch the run-up to one scene three times to make sure I hadn't missed something. It turns out I hadn't missed anything - it was either another gaping hole in the dialog or the editor went mad and took a meat axe to it.If the plot got any vaguer this flick wouldn't have one. It's a low-budget, miserable failure. Save yourself the cost of the video hire. Watching paint dry is more entertaining.Oh, and don't let the mention of Close Encounters or Stargate mislead you into believing this is actually a sci-fi flick. It isn't. It's more of a weird drama that tries to ask "what makes us human?"