A night of terror lies ahead for a large amount of disparate groups of people when they get stranded in the desert with a murderous alien on the loose. What does he want? Why does he hate humans so much? How did that bit of audio of an alternate take from some dialogue that happened 20 minutes ago manage to get edited into a completely unrelated scene? These questions, along with many others that are raised during the course of the movie, go largely unanswered in Battlefield 2025, a no-budget sci-fi / horror / slasher from the people who brought Krampus: Origins into the world back in 2018.
The first 30 minutes of this roughly 70-minute test of endurance are spent getting to know an insane amount of characters who ultimately provide nothing but fodder for the angry alien’s beginner-level CGI rampage. Only two or three of these people even approach anything that most viewers would deem “likeable”, and the success rate for passable performances is, unfortunately, even lower. The second half of the film attempts something along the lines of a sci-fi horror slasher, but doesn’t manage to create any tension or excitement and the final scene, where we finally see the actual battlefield mentioned in the title, is more of a kick in the teeth than the intriguing cliffhanger that it was presumably intended to be.
Battlefield 2025 is one of those films whose underlying ambition is far beyond the abilities and budget of those involved. That isn’t always a barrier to enjoyment – many entertaining movies have been made with even less resources to hand than this – but almost everything goes spectacularly wrong for Battlefield 2025. Audio is frequently out of sync, actors stumble over their lines even though it’s all completely overdubbed and could easily have been rectified, and characters conveniently appear out of nowhere at just the right moment while others disappear altogether without explanation. It’s a non-stop barrage of horrible characters, plot holes, continuity errors, editing mistakes and technical shortcomings from beginning to end.
If there are any shining lights at all (apart from the single super-powered beam used to brighten up the night scenes), bit-part player Jose Rosete – a man whose IMDB credits page is longer than most books – shows that he deserves much more than most of the parts that have been afforded to him thus far in his career, and the filmmakers clearly possess an admirable amount of ideas and enthusiasm. Unfortunately though, these things will only get you so far, and Battlefield 2025 really can’t be recommended to anyone other than those who get a kick out of similar cinematic disasterpieces.
