It’s a nifty idea – especially in terms of structure – but that’s about it, with Clarke’s direction proving as flat as his performance.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Time Out London by Cath Clarke
Clarke directs fights in weird slo-mo and is generous with scenes of himself in his undies.
The thread holding it all together is endless, repetitive, interminable fight scenes whose limp choreography is spiced up with Matrix-style slow motion -- in 2015. For all that -- fists flying, bullets dodged, gratuitous female nudity -- the film is oddly inert.
From its elaborate but incoherent premise to its clunkily staged time-freeze fight sequences, not one detail of “The Anomaly” hasn’t been borrowed from a better movie. That magpie opportunism would matter less if the film at least had barreling narrative momentum.
Big sci-fi ideas done on a budget doesn't quite translate into a compelling thriller.
Los Angeles Times by Michael Rechtshaffen
There's infinitely more than one anomaly to be found in The Anomaly, a thoroughly nonsensical futuristic sci-fi thriller that makes a case for the perils of vanity projects.
The Hollywood Reporter by Neil Young
The general air of slipshod incompetence thus torpedoes the intriguing concepts underlying Lewis's screenplay.