When all is said and done, RISEN is ultimately an invaders from space movie. It is not the best rendition of this genre that I've seen, but it's certainly a reasonably competent execution.
Unlike the INDEPENDENCE DAY style of invasion consisting of overwhelming force, advanced technology and well armed alien invaders, RISEN is the "seeding" approach that starts small and vulnerable and grows to irresistibility before we earthlings figure out what's going on.
At the time of this writing there appear to be a lot of negative reviews regarding RISEN. I would contend that RISEN is a "good" movie (whatever that means) that garners a lot of viewer negativity because the success of the aliens in taking over our planet primarily derives from the efforts of a human traitor inadvertently supported by a generally widespread incompetence on the part of those authorities that would nominally be tasked with protecting humankind from such things.
There are undeniably some weak plot points in the picture and they tend to be a little infuriating because the alien's success significantly turns on these weak plot points which is intrinsically annoying to a viewer.
The events of the movie are mostly about what turns out to be the third attempt at colonization by the aliens. The first one is caught and thwarted by the Americans, and the second attempt is caught and thwarted, although kept secret, by the Russians (employing their signature shocking violence).
The third attempt, the subject of RISEN, largely succeeds because of the (somewhat) "unwitting" assistance of a traitorous woman who was "altered" and "programmed", somewhat by accident, during the course of the first failed attempt decades previously. During the course of the movie, we find out how much she has been aiding the invasion process literally all during the years of her life.
As an example of a weak plot point, one of the things the female traitor does is feed the aliens information about the nature of our planet and its location. If you think about it, this doesn't make any sense. Firstly, she appears to be using a regular radiofrequency radio and not some super advanced communication device because other people can hear her doing it on their receivers. So why didn't we track her down at the time? The aliens must've been fairly close by or else how would they have received a radio signal in anything like a usable time frame; why would the aliens need information from her? Their first attempt had already been made on the planet BEFORE they infected her as a PART of that first attempt. This suggests they already know all about earth and its location.
There are many more such easily recognizable plot holes. Enumerating them here would be more boring than I have already been.
The traitorous woman character spends most of the movie giving vacuous stares in lieu of acting, slack-jawed and mouth hanging open. There is literally NOTHING engaging about her and, speaking for myself, I had an overwhelming desire to give her a good thumping with a crowbar through the entire picture even BEFORE her thoroughly traitorous nature was fully revealed. Add that to the fact that the aliens were only successful because this traitor was allowed to operate without oversight or review by any authorities, and a movie with otherwise good quality production values becomes a disappointment.
RISEN is a worthwhile watch for science fiction fans but make sure you bring along your desktop stress-reliever toy with you because the movie will irritate.
