Worth: $12.00
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Cast:
Irina Starshenbaum, Aleksandr Petrov, Rinal Mukhmetov, Oleg Menshikov
Intro:
...less of a blockbuster and more of a war romance ...
After interference from the Russian air force, an alien craft crash-lands in the middle of Moscow claiming the lives of many on the ground. Not accepting their part in the city’s destruction, the Government quickly set about making the inhabitants of the craft public enemy number one, despite the alien’s insistence that they will leave once they’ve made repairs. In some quarters, Attraction has been touted as Russia’s answer to Independence Day, but it shares a lot more in common with Neill Blomkamp’s District 9. Well, up to a point.
Despite impressive action that top and tails Attraction, it’s best to approach the film as less of a blockbuster and more of a war romance with two lovers desperately reaching out to each other over the trenches. Irina Strashenbaum plays Yulia, a student who blames the aliens for the death of her best friend. When she comes face to face with one of them, Heken (Rinal Mukhmetov), Yulia must overcome her own prejudices in order to help him get back home. It certainly helps her that Heken is shaped like an incredibly gorgeous human being.
Whilst the relationship between the two will have some audience members going doe-eyed, it unfortunately has a large impact on the rest of the film. The political discourse, as Yulia’s father, Colonel Valentin (Oleg Menshikov), tries to quell the beginnings of civil unrest, is by the far the more interesting aspect. There are some neat touches in this allegory about ‘illegal immigrants’, with everything the stranded aliens do and say being misinterpreted as a threat to humanity.
Director Fedor Bondarchuk (Stalingrad) has admitted the film has political leanings, inspired by the Moscow Riots in 2013 that saw a young Muslim man accused of murdering a local. It’s the kind of heady metaphor that good science fiction can be built upon. So, it’s a blow that the premise of the film is really built around is some rather unengaging Twilight-esque alien romancing.
