Parents' Guide to Proximity

Although this close-encounter thriller initially shows some potential, the movie is too unevenly paced and performed to stand out as a genre film. Masson, who comes across like a combination of Asa Butterfield and Lukas Haas, is fine as an earnest young scientist coming to grips with a confusing and otherworldly situation. But Proximity's ensemble would have benefited from at least one recognizable actor to add some gravitas to the otherwise unfamiliar cast. Kuan, for example, is appealing, but she exhibits little chemistry with Masson and occasionally struggles with her timing and delivery.

Writer-director Eric Demeusy -- making his feature debut -- is a visual effects artist, so the movie's effects are notable, particularly since this isn't a big-budget film. That said, the plot suffers from posing more questions than it answers and relying too much on the android villains. Toward the end, there's also a confusing religious explanation for why the aliens have made contact with humans. The sequences set outdoors -- in Costa Rica and California -- fare better than the indoor ones, which don't display a realistic production design. Families who can't get enough sci-fi alien movies may want to give this a chance, but it's not going to measure up to the better entries in the genre.