The Objective (2008)

Starts out half-interesting but gets too caught up with it's own inability (or desire) to tell a straight story that it just becomes a jumbled mess.If I was to summarise it it would be that a group of soldiers have an objective to identify something mysterious in the desert of Afghanistan.There's not really any need for spoiler warnings or anything because there's really not a whole lot to spoil as there is not any clear answers to what this movie is about.Now of course as a viewer we are able to form our own picture to what it is about but there really aren't enough interesting characters or events to really warrant expecting the viewers to do that.Acting is fairly amateurish overall, I think the lead guy mainly got the role because he was American and knew how to speak Arabic tbh.Yeah nothing too exciting here, and in the end pretty pointless.

After watching this movie last night, I made a point to remind myself to look up the next day... just what it was that I watched.After reading the reviews on here (a couple were a huge help, helping me understand some of the middle east lore), I realized that I felt similar to a majority of the other reviews on here. I started watching it because the setting and tag line interested me. I was very into the story through almost the entire movie. But, without having that background in some of the history and mythology of the area, I was left scratching my head at the end. This movie had a lot of promise, and for the most part delivered on that. The setting, cinematography, and acting were all pretty good. The special effects were... not the best, but okay. But the story really kind of dropped the ball in the final act. Worth a watch, but be ready to come away feeling unfulfilled if you don't know much about middle eastern lore and mythology. Be ready to do some reading up to answer any lingering questions, because the movie will not answer them for you.

A standard-issue modern war film that splits off mid-way through into the occult is an interesting premise. Other reviewers have deciphered the Middle-Eastern mythology operating in the film, but the viewer is left too far adrift to be satisfied when the film is over. Still, 'The Objective' is worth watching for its atmosphere, and conveys dread if not horror very well. The Special Ops unit operating in a VERY remote part of Afghanistan are convincing as soldiers not acting, rather than actors being soldiers. The narrative is problematic and with some re-working of the last segment 'The Objective' might become a minor classic. Ironically, the only frightening aspect of this film is the Earth itself--imagine being cut-off in the true Middle Of Nowhere where the mind begins to play tricks on itself devoid of civilization. Anyone who has driven off the map and spent a few nights in the desert alone has, in a sense, dared fate to come and get him. The Superstition Mountains of Arizona are a local example of eeriness. So, 'The Objective' is entertaining and almost works. Added special effects would make no difference improving it, as it operates in the mind. Give it a try.

This is an eerie film relying upon a mysterious style and a very wild and remote filming location, namely the southern wastes and deserts of Morocco. The story is ostensibly set in the mountains of Afghanistan, clearly too dangerous as a place to shoot. According to the story, the CIA has detected an alien presence in the Afghanistan mountains, and they know more about it than they are letting on. They send a special ops agent in a major's uniform to command a platoon of special forces 'grunts' and go in search of the alien base. It is in reality a suicide mission, from which no one is expected to return, but the soldiers aren't told that. Mysterious lights begin to appear, which rush towards people and then vanish upwards suddenly. 'Ghosts' and phantoms are glimpsed. The soldiers encounter an elderly shaman sitting alone in a cave. He has a small gold object shaped like an aircraft sitting near him, which the CIA man pockets. It is an enlarged model of the famous gold object found in Colombia, which van Däniken claimed was a model of an ancient spaceship. How this got from South America to Afghanistan is not explained, but then the whole point of the film is that nothing is explained, and it is meant to be like that. Eventually we realize that what are based in the mountains are 'vimanas', namely alien spacecraft, 'vimana' being an ancient Sanskrit word. Ancient Hindu texts refer to these flying machines of the gods in antiquity, and this subject has been discussed in many books for nearly a century. Many UFO enthusiasts claim that vimanas were ancient UFOs. Because they were said to work with 'mercury engines', they have also been associated with the attempts by the Nazi SS to create advanced aircraft and power sources using mercury, and it is not unlikely that the Nazis were attempting to replicate the vimanas described in the ancient texts, since it is known that Himmler and Hitler were advised by some Sanskrit scholars, in connection with their racial mania for 'Ancient Aryans'. Hitler and Himmler were also convinced that Tibet was the origin of Aryan civilisation, hence their many research expeditions to Tibet, and a setting of a base in the neighbouring mountains of Afghanistan fits in with this idea. The film was written and directed by Daniel Myrick, who made THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999). He specializes in scaring people by the use of suggestion rather than by explicitly showing them things. That approach draws its inspiration from German expressionist films, from CAT PEOPLE (1942, see my review), and also from Hitchcock, and it can enable an effective suspense film to be made on a very low budget. This film is effective and intriguing and is a good example of how you can make something out of nothing if you just have some imagination, determination, and ability. As for the CIA involvement, they firmly maintain that extraterrestrial life is 'the ultimate security issue', and they have been acting in accordance with that view since the late 1940s. And when you have spooks dealing with something 'ultimate', watch out.