Broadly, there is a fairly compelling idea at the core of this film: depicting the on-the-ground human resistance against an invading alien force, drawing on imagery and themes ranging from World War II (collaboration with the enemy driven by fear and/or self-interest) to America Todayâ„¢ (heavily militarized policing of urban neighborhoods). But the execution is deeply unsatisfying and frequently incoherent.
Beholden to a groan-worthy and preposterous denouement (the questions pile up fast and furious:
nearly every major player in the Chicago resistance was...on the faculty at the nominal protagonist's elementary school? the aliens cannot detect their own advanced explosives?
), the storytelling is obscenely long on obfuscation and red herrings. We constantly follow a thinly developed character, all the same shade of humorless, for a few beats only for them to be discarded or set aside for a long stretch of screen time.
Rooting interest is nonexistent, so there is no poignancy nor any sense of triumph. The specific nature of certain relationships is hard to pinpoint (and not in an enigmatic way). At times, it is truly difficult to understand who is doing what, let alone to whom or why. This is compounded by an ugly aesthetic defined by functional-at-best, dourly lit hand-held cinematography and haphazard editing.
There is also an unfortunate air of pretense: this film firmly believes itself to be one of Big Ideas, no mere
genre bonbon, so it denies simple pleasures (such as more than a few fleeting scenes featuring the menacing aliens themselves) as it fumbles and stumbles in its bid to be clever, timely, "hip," etc.