Nerds That Geek Movie Review: 'Beyond'

Written by Scott Edwards

Since many people believe in love at first sight, the next question would be, is that kind of love everlasting? I know you can see somebody and envision the rest of your life with the person, but can you even try to imagine what might happen further down the road, and what if you have fights over the important things? If you can see what might happen in the years to come more power to you, but as most of us keep trying to find the person we want to spend the rest of our time with, we are careful in jumping in with both feet first as we have had problems with doing that in the past.

When Cole is out at the local convenience store he gets put in a position to do something right. When he notices that the clerk is being held at gunpoint, he steps into action by trying to distract the gunman until the authorities can arrive. Cole however does not know what trouble this can bring upon himself when the gunman shoots the clerk anyway and makes off with the money. Wanting to clear his head, Cole gets a call from his good friend inviting him out for a drink. Thinking this is the right idea, he agrees, but does not want to end up at another house party, he just wants to some peace and quiet with his drink.

Getting the address, Cole is not surprised, yet not disappointed that he is at another house party when he meets Maya. Hitting it off from the moment they start talking, the two know that they will be happy with each other for the rest of their days. Throwing out fun conversations about the future, they both decide that they should get married, but Maya is not up for the conventional ceremony, so she deems them married right then. Time passes, and the two are happy and carefree, but Cole is tormented with what happened the night the two met as he keeps running into the clerk that he witnessed die months ago and it is destroying his life.

But that is not the only thing happening in the world, as an asteroid is moving towards the planet and starting to enter the atmosphere. Finding out that there is an alien invasion happening, Cole and Maya have to flee the city with what they have on their backs and try to survive as long as possible. Cole starts to change his outlook on life, no longer being the happy go lucky guy that he once was, he is taking responsibility for his and Maya’s life and takes it seriously. Directing his love to stay away when he goes out on his daily runs for food, Maya starts to question if his love was ever true and if they should continue under their charade of being a couple any longer.

This is more of a character study as you get bounced between present day and the past, watching as Cole and Maya struggle to survive an alien invasion. Since they are both looking for the good in the world before it is taken over by an extermination force, they are challenged with keeping their humanity and relationship intact. With the story bouncing around from when they met, to what they are doing to survive, it is a movie you need to watch very closely. If you miss one of the breaks in the story, you will be lost and not fully understand what is happening on the screen. I did enjoy how both storylines were tied together and this one makes you pay more attention than most alien movies. There is one miss with the movie in my opinion, and that is not being able to see the collapse of society, along with the invasion taking full effect, but the couple did not see it and I can understand why it was left out. Happy Viewing.

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