I was actually looking forward to the sequel/conclusion/second half of Alienoid, a Korean action movie that uncomfortably mashed together a wuxia epic and chintzy sci-fi spectacle - each half set in separate timelines, cobbled together with a mess of haphazardly plotted time travel and a very poorly thought-out alien conspiracy.
While the modern sci-fi section was terrible, the wuxia storyline was surprisingly excellent; And by the end it seemed that, with most of the main characters stranded in the past, that would force the sequel to play to its strengths.
And for all of maybe half an hour, it seems like it's working. The first few scenes follow the mysterious gun-toting woman - who we now know is Lee Ahn (Kim Tae-ri), the kid from the first movie, all grown up (to add to the confusion, there are two timelines set in the past, ten years apart).
She now possesses a MacGuffin which will allow the evil aliens to return to the future to enact their cataclysmic terraforming plans, so all the bad guys are going after her. Trying to (mostly) help her are Dosa Mureuk (Ryu Jun-yeol) and his two cat/human hybrid servants and two other magicians played by Yum Jung-ah and Jo Woo-jin.
That's a very decent setup! All of these characters are fun, and the first fight - against some mercenaries - is a lot of fun, a very traditional Chinese-style fight where Lee Ahn doesn't let her opponent unsheathe his sword. The way it's shot is not great, but the choreography is. The action/stunt director is Sungchul Ryu, returning from the first movie. There's some good wire work later on.
What follows - which focuses on the sorcerers chasing Lee Ahn - is admittedly not as good, but it's all mostly fun. And then... it all goes to shit.
First we, uh, return to the future to reunite with Min Gae-in (Lee Hanee). She was an extremely minor character in the first movie, the custodian of Lee Ahn's BFF whose main thing was being 'comically' smitten with Lee Ahn's 'dad'.
Well, she turns out to be a badass... customs officer, and via an extremely convoluted set of contrivances she finds out about the alien conspiracy. She's also the descendant of a badass warrior monk (Jin Seon-kyu), who was blinded by the aliens when they took over a Dosa monastery.
By the time we get back to the Wuxia side of things, the plot has spread like an ugly infection, squeezing the fun and joy out of the plot with convoluted revelations about the true nature of several of the protagonists, and more unengaging, effects-based action.
Once all characters are yanked to the sci-fi timeline it's almost impossible to care about whatever the hell is happening - writer/director Choi Dong-hoon has let all of his worst tendencies subsume everything. All that's left is lousy plotting full of people shrugging off seemingly mortal wounds, terrible jokes, chintzy-looking special effects and deeply unexciting, CGI-dependent action with some occasional posturing. It seems to consciously go for the feel of a Marvel movie.
It's an ignoble end for something that had a fair amount of potential.
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