IMDb has the estimated budget for this film as $300, which I really find hard to believe – so let's say it is 100% out and it is $600; it doesn't matter if you double it again because this film is still very impressive for any short film that was made independently. Although there s a basic plot here about a robot invasion, the short essentially a showcase reel for special effects work and, as such, it is very impressive indeed. The robots are imposing and well designed but it is the destruction they unleash that impresses the most since the viewer knows that it wasn't done for real and that it wasn't done in a multi-million dollar effects studio – it just looks like it was.
Although I'm not sure if it is used "officially", the film makes a good choice in the music by using part of the score from horror movie 28 Days Later, with its building, brooding tone helping the on screen action and getting me "into" the destruction on slightly more than a technical level. That said the cast (in particular the little boy at the start) are not as good as the effects, although fortunately they are not as key as the effects to the film's success. Talking of being involved it was getting close to "the end" of the film and I was being a little cynical about it in terms of being a story and I wondered how he would end it in a way that I'd find satisfying as a viewer (not just someone watching effects being done really well with very little money). I was just thinking this when the robots meet and, well, the film ends – and it ends in a very satisfying and appropriate way indeed.
It is essentially a digital CV but it does also work as a great short film that hooks you thanks to the special effects but also delivers engaging action as well thanks to the use of music, shot selection and urgency of the whole piece. Technically very impressive but also very enjoyable at the same time – like a wise man once said, loads better than two hours of Transformers 2 and made for the cost of one of Megan Fox's haircuts.
