The Anomaly is basically a sci-fi film with only one point of view. It doesn't give much exposition to its questionable futuristic world, unless it has something to do with the main character's fight against his own odds. The plot is appropriately straightforward, even with its heavy ideas, it all consistently fits. However what isn't so clever is how it is put together. How the character picks up the pieces of information is drab and incoherent, that seems like the filmmakers doesn't care much of the mystery and instead focus more on its style. While those pretentious use of slow-motion and lens flares can be cool to look at, it also robs the potential of being at least a solid science fiction film. It's far from horrible as what many people have called it, but then it is also true at being a typical action film that you would watch when you are bored in an afternoon.

By looking at its aesthetics, people might be impressed, especially if you acknowledged its non-blockbuster budget. But it might as well gloss over to the fact that it is a vaguely defined future. We're not even sure if is this really the future or just an alternate universe. Nobody even mentions the year and some of its product placements are too modern (notice the poster of 2013's We're The Millers). A goof like this may be forgiven if the world itself isn't this charmless. The flavor it eagerly provides is the colorful lights. The weapons, the devices, etc. consist lights with certain types of color to undoubtedly match its lens flares. And there is no distinction either in every place they stop into. Whenever it passes from London to New York to wherever else, the additional objects we only see, to make sure that this isn't the same world we are living in right now, are holograms and blips that look exactly the same. And what these things showcase in their screens might indicate a commentary of having an overly commercialized society, but that only leaves to a theory.

The real pivotal hook here is the high-concept. It has to be simple, though the huge deficiency takes place at the first act when it introduces its concept by jumping into various time and countries to show off a set of stylish set pieces and visuals. It gets a lot interesting when the real questions finally unfolds, despite that it is usually tension free. Slick direction helps to keep the attention on, and it's probably too slick for its own good. It's still fine to follow the rest of this nonsense, even though it keeps reverting its potential darkness to silly moves and an unbelievably big deus ex machina. What people would likely complain the most are the often interrupting action scenes that seems to solely exist to look cool than to drive tension. Its trademark slow-mo fights have a groan-worthy welcome, though the extended choreography in the middle eventually becomes entertaining. We should admit that most of them are just unnecessary and difficult to take seriously, but sometimes there is an advantage to it since this is already a bland universe.

As for the acting: Ian Somerhalder could have been effective as the villain if he provides a sense of psychosis, but just like everyone else he is there to look cool. The lack of convincing his nefarious intentions sucks out the fun whenever he is around. The real pleasure is when (possibly spoilers) some of the characters become surrogates of Brian Cox. Cox himself is mostly there to be strapped on a machine and phone in to a footage, but when Clarke and Hemsworth do the impression for him, it becomes ludicrously entertaining.

There is a sense of competency to be found in The Anomaly that sort of glosses the fact that it is still a generic action, and as a directorial debut of its star, it must be a little surprise of not being a total disaster, but this is still not as smart neither as awesome as it wanted to be. With a little vibe of inspiration to The Matrix; single-word title, mind-blowing concept, with cool looking characters, and stylishly constructed slow-mo; the film just doesn't manage to make any of that great. But then there is an undeniable value (plus it is perfectly short), only when there is nothing else interesting around. Because generic action has become so generic, at least this one has an intriguing use of budget, fine to root for concept, a fun mimicry to its only veteran actor, and of course absurd amount of pretty lights.

"Is there a technology that allows people to control somebody else's mind? Tell me about mind control!" Once I was looking at a painting in an art gallery. I was studying this creation of modern art for more than half an hour and still I couldn't grasp what it actually wanted to prove and I came to the conclusion that after rotating it a quarter turn, there won't be any essential change. And then I remember the compulsory reading of a literary work out of the magical-mythical oeuvre of a Dutch writer, who used two pages to describe dead flies on a windowsill. And clearly I recollect the lesson "Statistics" at the university, looking at the blackboard for more than an hour and wondering what all the complicated theorems really meant. I had the same feeling while watching "The Anomaly". After half an hour I asked myself "What the hell am I watching and what's the meaning of it all ?". Seeing the main character waking up for the fifth time in a different location, looking around in a dopey way and not understanding how he ended up there at a different time in the future, began to irritate quickly. Meanwhile I could admire the graceful butt of a lascivious-looking vamp. Although it was a tasty image that claimed my attention, the urge to give up became larger by the minute.

It all starts with Ryan (Noel Clarke), an ex-soldier suffering from a trauma, waking up in a moving van where he finds a boy called Alex who is being kidnapped. He escapes with Alex but soon discovers that he only has a limited time to find out what is happening. To be precise, he only has 9 minutes and 47 seconds each time he wakes up and before he loses consciousness again. Slowly but surely he discovers that he's part of a conspiracy and his actions are coordinated by someone else.

As I mentioned earlier, it takes a while before you begin to realize what it's all about. "The Anomaly" is a dull low-budget film which starts very slowly and finally, when all the pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place, it all looks fairly simplistic and even ridiculously far-fetched. It's like a rough mix of "Source Code", "The Bourne Identity", "Edge of Tomorrow" and "The Matrix". Regaining consciousness over and over again resembles a bit "Edge of Tomorrow", except that this phenomenon in the latter made sure there was tension and some comic moments. In this SF it's only a soporific effect. The fight scenes that occur repeatedly are a faint copy of this from "The Matrix" with the frequent use of slow motion images which isn't very conducive to the overall tempo in this film. Also the technical implementation by Noel Clarke during these fights wasn't convincing. It seemed as if he was waiting for something all the time. In other words, it wasn't really smooth.

Noel Clarke is quite a handyman in movie land. This British actor (better known for his role in the TV series "Doctor Who") directed this trifle and demanded to act as the leading star. Besides looking puzzled and surprised, painfully gasping after receiving an inhuman hard blow and acting as heroic as possible by repeatedly proclaiming that he eagerly wants to save the young boy Alex, there was nothing impressive to admire for the rest. I am quite convinced that the film was sponsored by a manufacturer of mens underwear, because Clarke was running around in it several times. Also the graceful leading lady Alexis Knapp as Dana, the Mother Theresa of this film, could be admired while wearing it or even less. At the first appearance we could glance at her lower body part and afterwards she was also scantily dressed. Eventually these were all fragments needed to raise the slacking attention, but at the same time I realized that her contribution only served to make things more sensual. Ian "Lost" Somerhalder is the one that appears again and again and who plays a significant role in the whole plot. I could not get rid of the impression that it was more a commercial decision to let him play so the female audience also could enjoy the ride. Brian Cox ("The Bourne Identity," "Mindscape" "Her" and "Doctor Who") has a lot of acting experience , but in this movie he's reduced to a houseplant who hardly comes into the picture.

An unconvincing story, no impressive performances and a total lack of tension. There's not much left anymore to save this from going down the drain completely. And the fact that this is a low-budget film, also means that the SE's won't be impressive. Admittedly, London still looks futuristic with the digitally added buildings at the background and flying airships. But the moment Ryan arrives at Times Square, everything looks average and contemporary (Even a screen-shot shows that "We're the Millers" is still popular in the future.). The complete concept wasn't ill-conceived, only the script was poor and incoherent with some ridiculous situations. You didn't need to wait for this very long. Already at the beginning there was something wrong with the pursuit. Young Alex and Ryan have a small lead and yet they were too quick for the probably well-trained kidnappers. With an Olympic effort they managed to take a nice lead. And despite the high-tech gadgets that were available, they still couldn't prevent sun-flares disturbing the satellites. Eventually I began to wonder if the title of the film wasn't a reference to the film itself. Maybe it was just an exception to the rule "It's so bad, it turns out good".

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A guy wakes up in a room. There's a flashlight. He finds a kid chained to a wall. He frees him. They tinker with a wall and turns out they are inside a moving armored vehicle. No problem, they just push the door open and jump out when it stops and walk away. They are in London in the future. Well, the guys in the front aren't happy and start chasing them. The two escape to a cemetery where the kid tells him that men in red masks killed his mom. When the bad guys arrive, it turns out that Ryan has some fighting skills and he beats one of them. The other guy knows him. When Ryan starts going through his own pockets he finds a gun and a red mask. But suddenly something strange happens.

Now he wakes up several days later in a room with books and with some type of plan on the wall. The bad guy is there as well. He talks to Ryan as if they work together on some project. We learn more about Ryan. He was military and confined to an institution for PTSD, panic, and anxiety. The boss and researcher there is Dr. Langham who took care of him. The bad guy is working on something that involves the kid.

Again something jarring happens and Ryan wakes up having sex with a prostitute in New York days later. He remembers the kid and decides to take the prostitute with him, but first he has to go through her Russian pimp. More fights ensue. He promises her freedom of she helps him find the kid. Good thing he remembers information from the previous episodes and he notices that each time he has about 10 minutes to get things done before he's transported elsewhere. They escape but the Russians are in pursuit and they also run into the police.

Next he wakes up in a room where a guy is being waterboarded by police. He's there as some physician who OKs whether to continue or stop the "interrogation". The victim is some researcher named Leonid. The two manage to escape. But at every turn the bad guy appears.

Through more of these episodes we discover that Ryan has received some implants by a corporation run by the good Dr. Langham who now has the kid. The aim is through these implants to control people. The problem is that Ryan's implants have a connectivity issue with the satellite which is why he gets these 10 minutes where he gets to be himself. During the other times his body is controlled by Langham. Ryan with the help of the prostitute will try to stop the Langham project to control all humanity and to rescue the kid. He'll have to confront Langham and the bad guy who always shows up and is actually Langham's son.

The Anomaly is interesting and a bit original. It mixes science with futuristic sci-fi with a fight action movie and all told in these short episodes. The science is the strongest aspect. There are also some interesting ideas about humanity and control. I wouldn't recommend looking for plot holes though because there are plenty. The weakest are the fights. Oddly enough it seems that the filmmakers knew the fights were weak too, and how could they not, however instead of trying to mask the weakness they further enhanced it with tricks designed to make good fights look good. Here instead we have several poor fights that looks even worse. They used some jumping camera work and Matrix-like slow-mo editing, which works when fights are fast at normal speeds. But if you have slow and weak punches to begin with and slow them down, well, the result is nothing to brag about. Another problem is the completely uncharismatic lead and a dry villain. You do end up disliking the bad guy mostly because he's a bit annoying and because his role isn't thought out well, but you certainly don't care at all for the hero. Things improve casting-wise once the lovely Alexis Knapp appears, unfortunately she doesn't get enough to do.

The Anomaly is an intriguing, good looking movie that creates more expectations than it fulfills.