Looking back at my notes on Taklee Genesis x Worlds Collide, they’re as diverse and chaotic as the film itself. “It’s like someone gave Neil Breen a budget”, one reads. Another: “Was this written by AI?”

As a disaster movie aficionado, I found a lot to love in Taklee Genesis. How could I not? It practically steals from every one in existence. This is the first Thai film to be distributed by Warner Bros. and I think it’s because Taklee Genesis basically uses half their catalogue in weaving its incomprehensible story.

Any plot recaps feel entirely useless. Watching Taklee Genesis is like listening to an over-excited tween describe their dream movie. It begins as a riff on Close Encounters, detours via The Village, spins into The Time Machine, waves hi to Godzilla and Pacific Rim, makes time for a stop by Dawn of the Dead, and that’s only the first half of the film! If there ever was a case of more is more, it’s with Taklee Genesis.

How well any of this plays is entirely up to the viewer. Taklee Genesis pummels you with its insistence on doing everything at maximum effort, and even if you go along with it, the almost two and a half hour runtime tests the limits of even the most patient genre fan. You could cut out a full hour and lose nothing, but I don’t think anyone making Taklee Genesis even considered than an option.

Admittedly, there is a level of glee in this kind of recklessness. After all, if you got the chance to do whatever you wanted with a big budget, wouldn’t you go as crazy as a kid in a candy store? I can’t fault any filmmaker for loving their toys. But there is a limit to shared enthusiasm, and mine clocks in around two hours, tops.

But when it works, Taklee Genesis is a blast. I can’t tell if the laughs are intentional, but they’re laughs nonetheless. I couldn’t get enough of our hero’s father, who spends most of the film as a condescending disembodied voice who calls everyone “honey”. The dialog sounds like it was written by someone who has only observed humans using Google Translate, and then fed that into an algorithm hoping for the best. It has the same uncanny tinniness of Ed Wood, combined with the subtlety of Michael Bay and nuance of a Roland Emmerich.

In a way, if you’re only out for one film, and you want the most bang for your buck, Taklee Genesis is exactly what you’re after. It’s the value meal of cinema: packed with everything on the menu, regardless if it goes well together, or if the mix is even coherent. All that matters is there’s a lot of it, and nobody is going home feeling anything but stuffed to the gills.