Apocalypse Earth is a 2014 science fiction film about a group of space refugees who land on a planet inhabited by ruthless aliens – so they must fight for their survival. The movie is a mockbuster of both After Earth and Oblivion.

The cast consisting of Adrian Paul (Lieutenant Frank Baum), Bali Rodriguez (Lea), Richard Grieco (Captain Sam Crowe), Gary Hawks (TIM), Daniel Ross Mix (Colin), Jay Cardell (Sergeant Peebles), Michelle Jones (Hannah), Erika Hidalgo (Victoria), Jessica Russo (Cassie) does a reasonably job with Adrian Paul’s performance excellent.

Written and directed by Thunder Levin (apparently that is his real name) and produced by David Michael Latt and Paul Bales Apocalypse Earth is one of those extreme wastes of time where you regret you decided to flick through what to watch. With credits such as “Sharknado”, “Pacific Rim”, and “Megaladon” I should have known better!

Apocalypse Earth seems like Thunder Levin has slung together a movie script by beg, borrowing, and stealing, scenes and plot elements from every film he has ever watched. The bulk of Apocalypse Earth has been taken from Avatar where we see the hero (Adrian Paul) go native, engage in a romance with a native girl, and together they inspire her people to an uprising against their oppressors. There is also aliens hunting people from behind invisibility shields (Predator); the crash of the ship from orbit just as people are coming out of hypersleep from Pitch Black; the alien invasion in the opening scenes looks like a cheaper version of the one in Skyline; and there is the android TIM and his emotionless delivery (Star Trek: The Next Generation). The plot also has similarities with the 1968 Planet of the Apes!

The weirdest thing however was the constant references throughout to The Wizard of Oz which I should have seen coming when the hero was named Frank Baum. The android TIM is given to come out with lines like “You are right. I have no heart,” while Adrian Paul even gets to deliver “There’s no place like home” as the last line of the film.

The story in a nutshell: Spaceship ‘arks’ are loading civilians for transplant to other worlds. Lt. Frank Baum is one of the military officers in charge of overseeing the loading of the transports. Owing to a bombing run of the city by Earth’s alien attackers and riots on the ground by scared people he and a few of his people get shoved into the ship along with the last people boarding and are removed from Earth along with the regular evacuees. He reluctantly submits to cryostorage when he finds he can’t get back to his post on Earth.

Earth is under attack by an alien invasion. Humanity flees in spaceships. Military commander Frank Baum wants to go back and fight but is overruled by the ship’s captain Sam Crowe who insists that the only option left is for humanity to find another planet to live. They all go into cryo-sleep but are abruptly woken as the ship makes a crashlanding on an Earth-like world. Frank, Sam and a handful of others emerge from the wreckage to immediately find themselves in the midst of combat as survivors from another ship are hunted by Chameleons, aliens that hide behind invisibility cloaks. Killing several of the Chameleons, Frank takes command. He befriends and later becomes lovers with Lea, a humanoid alien girl of this new world, and makes plans to unite her people together to bring down their Chameleon masters.

What can I say? Apocalypse Earth is cheap………..and nasty! The effects vary between just OK and downright amateurish and unconvincing. The battles scenes and giant bug and lizard combats were trying to depict epic conflicts with a handful of people and have failed. Unfortunately I should have given this one a miss and suggest you do the same!