The nice thing about Netflix is that every week an enormous amount of content is added and you occasionally have absolutely no idea what to expect from a certain title. That may mean that you are pleasantly surprised, but also that you sometimes watch titles of which you think that they should not have been made. A while ago, Rim of the World appeared on the on-demand service. I hadn’t read or heard about it yet, but since the film was directed by McG (who also has directed, for example, 3 Days to Kill, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and Terminator Salvation), my expectations were not high, but I was curious about the concept. I always have a weakness for science fiction and a movie in which teenagers fight aliens looked interesting on paper.
When four teenagers go to a summer camp, it doesn’t work out exactly as they had imagined. In the midst of nature, they suddenly witness an invasion by aliens. They see how fighter planes try to defend the earth and it doesn’t take long before they themselves are attacked. They get a usb key from a crashed astronaut which they have to take to a NASA facility to save the world. Can this group of four very different young people reach their goal?
Rim of the World is a film where you will have to switch off your brain if you want to enjoy it. It is as if the scriptwriters have grabbed a number of sketches, some random social media stories, the idea of Super 8 and then stuck that together and managed to sell it. The summer camp contains strange stereotypical characters whose humor never lands and the dialogues regularly contain almost random dialogue (for example, there is a moment where the teenagers talk about Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man). In addition, it is strange that there is an invasion and the group is almost face to face with one alien almost the entire film. There is hardly any character development and the background stories are minimal or are told too late in the film to have an impact. And despite all that criticism, the film never gets really boring and manages to entertain on a basic level. It is a bit like “I’ll just watch one YouTube video” and then realize that you have been watching all kinds of random videos for an hour and a half. A film that is difficult to recommend, but that you might want to watch if you are curious.
[score4]