IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 2h 14m, rated 5.4 by 6,600 cineasts.
Genre: SyFy.
DNA: Russia.
Verdict: Oh hum.
Tagline: He’s back.
This is a sequel of Attraction (2017) discussed earlier on this blog. It adds little to the story. This outing is mostly shoot ‘em up with the unseen aliens. This confrontation seems to have been caused by Lazarus Romeo’s insistence on returning to Earth to copulate (off camera) with Juliet. So, that old Hollywood trope is vindicated: they have come for our women! Cf. The Mysterians (1957), Blood Beast from Outer Space (1965), Mars Needs Women [1968], and Lobster Man from Mars [1989] to name too many.
Needless to say, the Russian arsenal — depleted in Ukraine — is no match for these aliens, and it is up to Romeo to thwart his own kind and save Earth. Thousands have to die so that Romeo and Juliet can do anatomy. Huh? Well, it made sense to the screenwriter sitting at a keyboard in a dark room in front of a blank screen with a deadline to earn the rent money.
As with its precursor the acting and staging are excellent, though honours must go to the Madman (Alexander Petrov) who steals the shows with his wild-eyed drooling. He is so much more, well, alive than the reborn Romeo who remains tall, handsome, and wooden.
There are minor amusements in the observations on life. (1) Google is here but does not have a hospital scene this time. (2) The determination of people to snap selfies even as they are hammered to bits by the alien force was another. (3) But the best one is the effort of Romeo to buy twenty two-litre bottles of mineral water from a supermarket. He has money; he knows how to shop, but he is in a desperate hurry to save the world…with water. (Yes, I know but see the above aside about the screenwriter.) He fills a shopping cart with the bottles and pushes to the front of the queue at the check out desk. As the clerk scans the first one, he say there are ‘Twenty in all!’ and slaps down the rubles to cover the cost.
But no, the clerk has to scan each bottle individually and so he frantically passes them up to her and then throws them back in the cart, waving off her efforts to bag them. When the total costs comes up he pushes the rubles at her.
But no, she first asks for his loyalty card. ‘What? No loyalty card? He can sign up right now, and get a 5% discount on this, his first purchase.’ She begins tapping on the screen and asking his name, address,….
By now he is jumping out of his skin, as she waits for his response because…. (In this case it is more like a tree shedding bark, but I could not quite work that in.)
He takes off, leaving the money, and pushing the cart out to the parking lot, where…. Is his mention of Orion a tribute to an earlier and excellent Soviet Sy Fy film, Orion’s Loop [1981], discussed elsewhere on this blog?
Had he filled out the form, he would two hours later have gotten a text asking him to rate his experience at the check out! Even as the world burns, data that will never be used is collected. Is this the superpower convergence I used to hear about from pundits?
The room full of silent generals we see once or twice made me wonder who was invading Ukraine if all this brass was drinking tea.