OFFICE INVASION (NETFLIX) A Personal Review by Mpilonhle Makhaye

Whoever said a 9-to-5 is boring hasn’t heard about AMI company. Office Invasion made me to almost do a 10-1 on my chair as I couldn’t hold my laughter. Well! Okay! It might have been the beer I was drinking, from Writer and Director Gereth Crocker (Jongo, Dead places, Shadow etc…) with his Co-Director Fred Wolmarans who are no strangers on Neflix credit lists dish out a gripping science fiction story.

 When three best friends Sam (Rea Rangaka: Paradise Stop, Dead Places, The lucky Ones), Junior (Sechaba Ramphele: Love on Safari) and Prince (Kiroshan Naadoo: The Bananas Split Movie) who work at a company which supplies a rare mineral called Zulcanoid must defend the company from aliens who want to steal it and destroy earth.

The company supply can’t keep up with demand Melusi (Kabomo Vilakazi) sells the company to Gregory (Greg Vilijeon), Badrick (Stevel Marc) and Anya (Aimee Ntuli) immediately they make major changes into the company operations cutting off even medical insurance which Sam desperately depends on for his daughter who has an illness which requires expensive medicine. The three friends eventually find themselves out of work and decided to come into the office to steal Zulcanoid to sell it to a Chinese dealer, to their surprise they discover that the new owners are aliens. Oh no! Did I just spoil that twist for you.

A hand of applauds for the whole cast, acting is top tier even cameo roles came to the party, just amazing. The character relations are well developed, that’s why it hits us hard when things go south for our heroes, the story arch is solid as it makes it easy for us to fall in love and sympathies with characters.

 The scoring is on point as it levels up comedic moments. Cinematography is pretty much acceptable as it drives the story only revealing important details, beautiful choices were made. CGI isn’t that bad as it makes the aliens somehow seem believable it’s appropriate enough not to make one laugh.

 Office Invasion unfolds the whole plot as a flash-back, honestly was hurt when they killed my favorite actor at the opening scene. Anyways, it’s more of a Satire with a dash of science fiction as it plays out act one and two only for it to dwell into the genre in act three which wasn’t enough for viewer who are lovers of the sci-fiction genre. It runs for almost two hours, scene after scene making fall in love with the characters but a not enough gripping ending as our heroes fight with the aliens is very short lived, while there are being knocked around by the aliens, they only manage to win the fight cause of one of the aliens reveals their weakness to one of our heroes. Oh no! I did it again.  It could have given us more as the viewers.

 This is a movie that I would recommend you put on your watch list if you looking to escape reality. Take this from the guy who has watched it three times, Office invasion is available on Netflix.

 7/10