(Blasted: Gutta vs Aliens)
Norway. 2022.
Crew
Director – Martin Sofiedal, Screenplay – Emanuel Nordrum, Producer – Are Heidenstrøm, Photography – Mati Hogsnes Sovang, Music – Roy Westad, Visual Effects Supervisor – Lars Erik Hansen, Visual Effects – Gimpville AS, Special Effects Supervisor – Tom Jørgensen, Production Design – Sunniva Rostad. Production Company – Misofilm.
Cast
Axel Bøyum (Sebastian Borgnes), Fredrik Skogsrud (Mikkel Stegger), Andre Sørum (Kasper Keilland), Mathias Luppichini (Audun), Eirik Hallert (Pelle), Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (Hjørdis Skolem), Evelyn Rasmussen Osazuwa (Dr Stine Lyongo), Ingar Helge Gimle (Georg Skolem), Cecile Svendsen (Josefine), Rune Temte (Roy Gullhella/Rene Gullhella), Modou Bah (Benjamin), Idun Dae Alstad (Mystery Girl)
Plot
It is the bachelor party for Sebastian Borgnes. His friends have arranged a getaway to Hessdalen, a town plagued by reports of UFOs. Sebastian’s fiancée Josefine has suggested that they invite Sebastian’s childhood friend Mikkel Stegger. As teenagers, Sebastian and Mikkel had a championship laser tag partnership. However, when they meet up again, Mikkel seems very much stuck in the past. Sebastian is wanting to impress Kasper Keilland, a successful work colleague who has also been invited along, and finds Mikkel an embarrassment. They then discover that a number of Hessdalen locals have been taken over by an alien force that causes their eyes to glow green. With the local police not taking their reports of the alien threat seriously, Mikkel discovers that the aliens can be defeated with the laser tag guns. The only solution would seem to be Sebastian and Mikkel teaming back up as their teenage championship duo once again to stop the alien threat.
Blasted was the second feature-film from Norwegian director Martin Sofiedal. Sofiedal emerged from a bunch of short film in the 2010s and has become a regular music video and commercials director in Norway. He previously directed the adventure film Benjamin Falck and the Ghost Dagger/Legend of the Ghost Dagger (2019).
Watching a film about laser tag – one that comes with the byline ‘…only an alien invasion can make them put aside their bad blood and reunite as the kick-ass laser-tag duo they once were” – did nothing at all to inspire me before sitting down to watch Blasted. Laser tag seems an adolescent fad that was so 1980s/90s. The film throws paintball tournaments into the mix as well, but the feel is of a film made by a group of grown-up adolescents harkening back to the old days. And surprise, surprise, that is exactly what the characters in the film are too – a duo of men children harkening back to the glory days of when they were about twelve. There are similarities to Lazer Team (2015) and sequel, another comedy which had four adolescent men attaining equipment that pitted them against alien invaders.
The film is centred around a good deal of nerd humour. There are a bunch of amiable idiots that we are supposed to find cute in their knockabout antics but nothing that ever ends up being particularly funny. The main threat is a group of alien Body Snatchers who cause their hosts to manifest green glowing eyes. In a great piece of contrivance, the aliens can be separated from their host after having the laser tag gun fired at them. Cue a reteaming of the now adult laser tag duo to defeat the aliens.
The result is something that you feel sounded hilariously funny in the heads of the people when they conceived it but never translates to much on the screen. There is lots of running around. Blasted is generally competently put together and performed, but little of it that translates to anything particularly funny.
Trailer here