Drones
Drones
| 23 January 2010 (USA)
Drones Trailers

Brian Dilks is an Office Drone. He spends his days at OmniLink in comforting monotony: facilitating the movement of product around the country, faxing, copying, joking with his best friend, Clark, and harmlessly flirting with fellow cubicle-mate, Amy. But how well does anyone really know the people they work with? When Brian discovers an improbable secret about his best friend, everything in Brian’s world changes and his safe life of workplace detachment is no longer an option. Shocked out of his mind-numbing routine by this new discovery, Brian throws himself into a star-crossed romance with Amy––yet close encounters of the office kind, like sales or intergalactic war, is an uncertain business.

Reviews
Alicia

I love this movie so much

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Brainsbell

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

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Bea Swanson

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

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Brenda

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

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jp7570

***Some spoiler alerts***Think that guy next to your desk might be an alien? Think the girl in the copy room talking to the Xerox machine might be from another planet? You might be right!DRONES has the vibe of OFFICE SPACE (1999), combined with a little Twilight Zone thrown in for good measure. The birthday cake scene in both DRONES and OFFICE SPACE is painful to watch, for those of you who have experienced that. For good measure, DRONES throws in a company-composed birthday song. Yikes!There is also a parallel running joke - OFFICE SPACE had its TPS reports, while DRONES has the company database that is being changed from chronological to alphabetical. (Minor point: when you search a network server or database, you can sort it anyway you like, so this issue was really pointless.)Actors/directors Benson and Busch have put together a nice little indie comedy, but they could use a bit more seasoning and experience. At 98 minutes, DRONES feels long. It might have worked better as a 60-minute TV piece.All of the scenes takes place in the same drab, all-too-familiar office. There is NO visual variation - this might have been a creative choice, but it could also be done as a simple stage play, requiring very little in set design.The cast is populated mostly by unknowns, with a few recognizable character actors (Samm Levine, Angela Bettis, and James Urbaniak). Jonathon Woodward brings a sort of Nathan Fillion-vibe to the Brian character, and Angela Bettis as Amy is believable as not being from this planet. The lack of "celebrities" works in this film's favor.Some technical issues may have been a result of the directors' relative inexperience, or perhaps they were creative choices. Some scenes linger a little too long in the shot, creating awkward moments. Sometimes characters are not in-frame, but the camera eventually pans/tilts to capture the actors. If these were creative choices, they came off more as annoyances.If you are expecting sci-fi CGI from the aliens, you will be sorely disappointed. Except for a very brief special effects scene (only a few seconds of green light FX), there are no CGI scenes. The aliens are completely human-looking, and you will see no spaceships, explosions, tech gear, or ray guns.That is likely a budget decision, but it also hearkens back to such TV fare as MY FAVORITE MARTIAN to MORE & MINDY to THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN, and others. Effects were few and far between, aside from a few unusual costumes or a crudely built "spaceship".DRONES is worth a viewing, but lacks long-lasting memorable scenes that made OFFICE SPACE a "classic" (the latter wasn't particularly big at the box-office either, but it did find an audience in numerous cable viewings). Perhaps DRONES will have an second life on cable as well.

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Matt matt

I tuned into this reluctantly, expecting Cone-Head type nonsense, but was pleasantly surprised to find a dialog driven comedy both smart and funny.If only my selection of movie channels would schedule more like this. I almost missed it, I've become so cynical about the constant barrage of action, crime, bad horror, and cheap sex farces, that dominate the selection.If you like being treated as if you have a grain of brainpower, then watch this little gem.Maybe the aliens will evolve us.

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STEVEN DANKO

I caught this on cable a couple of nights ago while channel-surfing and was very pleasantly surprised and entertained by it. The main reason why I decided to watch it was because I saw Angela Bettis' name in the on-screen blurb. I enjoy her performances and I figured if she's in it, it's worth a viewing. I was not disappointed. As the female lead, she carries the whole movie and does so quite competently. She is just an absolute joy to watch. She has a great talent of being able to blend both the comedic and the dramatic and to make it believable. She's both sweet and sinister. Though the plot is ostensibly about space aliens masquerading as humans and living among us as they perfect whatever plans they have in mind for Earth, that's only a subtext to the main theme. These different alien species(who seem to be unaware of the others' presence here) are interested in either colonizing our planet and becoming our supervisors at work(!!) or wiping out humankind and grabbing our natural resources. But that's just a plot device to allow a satiric look at corporate office politics and culture and the rewards and dangers of office romance. It all works beautifully and one can see that the cast had a fun time making this film. Samm Levine and Dave Allen are just wonderful and James Urbaniak, with his humorous deadpan facial expressions, will crack you up. Don't miss this one. It's a real hoot!

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sgcim

I didn't think this was going to be very good, after hearing some out of tune singer sing some song about writing a memo, but once the movie started, it was non-stop hilarity. This was sci-fi comedy writing on the level of Douglas Adams or Robert Sheckley. Incredible comic timing by all the actors and actresses that served the genius dialogue extremely well. I haven't seen a film where I was laughing out loud after every exchange since "The Producers". So far, I've loved every movie Angela Bettis has been in, and I didn't even know she was in this till I saw her name in the credits at the end. Other than some of the songs, the music was an unusual type of chamber music that really brought out the quirky, claustrophobic nature of all the cubicle encounters. Though the arrangements of the songs were well done, the mediocre vocalists were the only weak point of an almost perfect ensemble piece. The pace is very fast, like many sit-coms you see nowadays, but the humor is actually intelligent as opposed to the moronic non-humor that I can't sit through anymore- in movies, TV or even real-life. And all on only 1/2 mill! Mainstream media is so devoid of talent in general, these people would be a welcome relief to the endless dreck we're being fed.

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