Area 51 (2015)

What could be more appropriate to the Thanksgiving season, than a movie about a bunch of under-prepared morons barging into a place they shouldn't?

Reid, Darren and Ben attend a party. Reid goes missing, the turns up standing in the middle of the road. Cut to 3 months later, he's preparing to break into Area 51. He's talked to people who know what the security measures are in the desert, and learned from them who has clearance to get them past security once inside.

The fact that Reid's brilliant plan to get help from this guy involves breaking into his house and stealing his i.d. badge and getting a fingerprint off a cologne bottle would indicate Reid's not thought this through terribly well. I mean, if this guy really works at Area 51, he's not going to report that his badge went missing in the morning? But they hang out at a motel/rest stop for a least a day after the theft before making their move.

Long story short, Reid, Darren and a woman named Jelena whose father infiltrated and went missing, break in while Ben waits out in the desert, and things go very wrong.

This is directed by the same person who did Paranormal Activity, so it's much in that same vein. All presented as footage Reid and the others recorded through their adventure. When things go wrong, it's great for conveying panic and disorientation. Darren running through hallway after hallway, up staircases, no idea where's he going, and it's not much more than blur because he probably doesn't even remember the camera's on.

The film does show at least one CGI alien, and it's really crappy-looking. They're better off sticking to shadows on the wall, or something equivalent to the hoofprints-in-flour thing they used in Paranormal Activity. Also, I don't really understand the part where Reid and Jelena are crawling through pipes, and suddenly they fall through into a blank white space. Unless the pipes were some sort of telepathic illusion and they'd been in the white place for a while already.

The problem with doing a film as found footage is, if the characters themselves barely understand what's going on, the audience is left guessing. Like, why do the aliens abduct who they do at the very end? No idea.

While Ben makes it clear he's just been humoring Reid, and grows increasingly nervous as Reid starts committing actual crimes in the run-up to infiltrating a base, it never details what's up with Darren. Why is he so gung-ho to do this? The film's not subtle there are underlying motives pushing Reid forward, but Darren's more of a cipher. He just seems to think putting on suits pumped full of freon to beat thermal scanners and risking being shot is a great idea.