I’m going to give Occupation four stars based mainly on the strength of the first movie. A large part of the reasoning is I own Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Stephany Jacobsen is in both. Oddly enough she is a resistance fighter in both.
The Look
If you scour the bowels of the Internet you should be able to find an interview Jackie Gleason gave after he finished shooting Nothing in Common with Tom Hanks. I can’t find it in a quick search. He talks about Tom Hanks having “mastered the look.” Jackie tries to explain it. That ability to work a camera without actually looking directly at the camera. To show your emotion to the camera from an angle that lets the audience feel like they are standing in the room, just off to the side.
Film schools suck today!
Too many movies look like they are shot with an iPhone and are just a series of shots with the actors looking straight into the phone.
Stephany Jacobsen has mastered “the look” whether she knows it or not.
Mother to the World Voice
One of the things I loved about Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is they had Lena Heady do the voice overs for episode intros in her “Mother to the World Voice.” You would think all women have that voice, but they don’t. I didn’t notice it with Stephany Jacobsen in that series, but she definitely had it here.
When it is a guy who has this voice, I and most others tend to call it “A Story Teller’s Voice.” It both comforts and pulls you in. Andreas Katsulas had such a voice when he wished to use it. They let him do some of the intro voice overs in Babylon 5.
Occupation: Rainfall
Occupation: Rainfall was the reason I was tempted to give this franchise 3 stars. They got back almost the entire cast but they had someone else play Stephany Jacobsen’s character. Rainfall committed the other mortal sin Hollywood franchises are all too eager to commit. Gave you half a movie so they could develop a sequel that wouldn’t completely suck. We shall see if that turns out to be true.
Summary
This is your basic alien invasion. Everyday people have their lives destroyed and must become warriors. Australia must be the economically viable country to shoot in because it is set there. The up side of that is we get some nice scenery unlike the unattended public toilet of New York.
In this era of binge watching though, you shouldn’t swap out actors when they play primary characters. The real killer for me was the new actor looked and sounded so much like the actress who played the pregnant nurse in the first episode I thought they were going to add some resurrection/re-incarnation/android storyline.
For more movie rental ideas please see list one and list two.
