Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a Sci-Fi channel original movie from 2005. That movie is "Alien Apocalypse".
Yes, guys, you heard me right, this movie was originally aired on the Sci Fi channel. Which I know will probably be seen as a red flag to some people, because the words 'Sci Fi channel original movie' usually means that it's more than likely gonna suck. However, I do have a little bit of hope for this one. Partially because this one wasn't made by the Asylum. Which, if you're not familiar with that studio, they basically produce mockbuster titles of big blockbuster movies and most of them air on the SyFy Channel, because that's the only network that will allow their kind of crap to be aired on there. But I digress.
Now the only other things that I know about this movie is that, one, it stars Bruce Campbell. And according to a blurb I caught on the back of the DVD case, it's supposed to be "Army of Darkness" meets "Starship Troopers". Now sadly, I still haven't seen "Army of Darkness" yet, however, I am a *big* fan of the first "Starship Troopers" movie. And this movie claims to be the best of those kind of worlds. Which I'm gonna say, it's a rather bold claim to make, although I think the only reason why they went with that blurb is because, again, it stars Bruce Campbell. However, that's just me speculating about minor bullshit.
Now I am hoping for this movie to be really interesting. You'll note that I said the word 'interesting', because I'm not really expecting this film to be any good. However, this movie could actually somewhat surprise me here in a way and actually end up surprisingly decent. However, considering this movie was originally aired on the Sci-Fi Channel, I still think 'decent' is probably going to be stretching it a bit. But still, I am really curious all the same about how this film will turn out. So the only thing I need to do right now is for me to shut up so I can push play and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Alien Apocalypse".
7 minutes later
Thank Christ that lieutenant is fucking dead. She was already starting to get on my nerves and I'm thankful she was killed off rather early. So hey, the quicker the better, I say.
6 minutes later
Guys, we're barely 15 minutes into the movie and we already have another one of our characters killed off. This time, it was from one of the aliens. And I gotta say...they actually don't look too bad. I mean, granted, the CG on them isn't great, but their design actually looks pretty cool, so I guess that counts for something.
7 minutes later
Wait, so let me see if I understand this. So for 20 years after the bombings and nearly everyone was killed save for those the aliens forced to work over to pick wood for them, the President of the United States and a few of his senators have survived the bombings and have been recruiting slavers to rebel against the aliens in their time of need. And it's all according to this one kid and I'm going to assume is suppose to be his mother. How do they know that the President is still alive after all this time? I'm really curious about this because if they've been waiting this long for the President to act against the aliens, then that means that he should've already recruited more than enough people to stage a rebellion against the aliens. Either that, or he's possibly dead, or been dead for around the 20 years that they said he's been supposedly alive. Guys, this movie's already run into a massive logic hole and I'm not even sure if the movie's going to address even one of those claims that I've already brought up.
10 minutes later
So, one of these aliens just died via a stabbing by Hood, who killed the alien with a small wooden object of sorts. So apparently, these aliens are really easy to kill. That's...good to know, I guess. It's kinda stupid, but at least they're not hard to kill.
19 minutes later
You know, guys, when I went into a movie called "Alien Apocalypse", I was expecting some kind of goofy, Sci-Fi action flick. Instead, I'm getting a dull, boring fantasy-esque sci-fi movie where Ivan and company are searching for the President. This isn't really what I signed up for, guys. And I'm beginning to lose interest in what's happening right now.
5 minutes later
Wait, where the fuck did those people come from?! I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but no, apparently, Ivan and friends recruited more fucking people than I realized. And again, I have to ask, where the hell did these fucking people come from?! Either there are deleted scenes in this movie that I'm not made aware of, or this movie was originally it's own version of a fantasy movie that was about 2 and a half hours long and they had to cut it down to around 90 minutes. Either way, this movie is still nonsensical and boring as shit and I still got about another 34 minutes to go before it finally ends. And I can't for it to end either.
15 minutes later
Guys, I'm gonna give this movie one thing. Bruce Campbell is the only one here who's actually trying to make this movie stand out. I mean, granted, the movie is still shallow and boring as shit, but at least I can see that he's trying to put in the effort. Which is more than what I can say for most of the entire cast of this movie, but I'll save that for later when I talk about the acting in this thing.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Alien Apocalypse". Let me shut this movie off here...OK. Dear sweet merciful god, where the hell do even I start here? Well...I suppose I can say that this is quite easily one of the most disappointing films I've seen in a long time. Now sure, I've seen other films before that I've had hopes for and most of them at least end up being kinda disappointing. But this movie, however, ranks high, high up there in the disappointment factor because I cannot believe a movie like this turned out the way it did.
Now, I gotta try and talk about this film in more detail. Let's start with the writing. Now, I have a theory about something. And mind you, this is all just a theory. I don't have any actual proof of this so you just have to take this for what it's worth. But I believe that, when this movie's script was being written, it wasn't meant to be a Sci-Fi film. I believe the director of this thing, Josh Becker, who also wrote it too, wanted to write a standard fantasy movie. However, someone over at the Sci-Fi channel approached him and suggested to shoehorn aliens into the story, thus this is how this movie got to air on the Sci-Fi channel. Again, I don't have any concrete proof of this theory, however, I would not be shocked if that's how it turned out. And as a result, this is the movie that came to be and, well, it shows.
Now to further prove my point on why aliens were shoehorned into this movie, they're barely fucking in it! Which is weird, because this movie's title has the word 'alien' to it, but they're hardly in it at all. Do you want to know what this movie likes to focus on more, though? Well, it will either focus on the slaves working at the sawmill, or you have Ivan and a band of former slaves travelling to the mountains to find the President, who's rumored to have a freedom fighting force that will launch a counterattack against the aliens. And on the latter, it's where the movie starts to slow down to a screeching halt because now, this is more of a standard RPG game where Ivan tries to recruit as many surviving former slaves while trying to look for the President and save slaves from the aliens. And it's not interesting in the slightest because none of these characters have any sort of interesting personalities to make them stand out amongst each other.
And on that subject, almost every character in this movie is shallow and lifeless as they come. The only exception to all this is Ivan Hood, our main character. Ivan is a somewhat cocky bastard who still has some kind of humanity left in him as he tries to converse with the locals who pretty much have no concept of some of the stuff he says, like he's a doctor, but they don't know what that is. Or how he tries to greet them with a handshake as a sign of friendship. That kind of stuff, really. So while they may not understand it, he does try to explain it to them the best he can. And it's those aspects alone that makes Ivan the most likable character in the entire movie. Everyone else...no. His astronaut girlfriend is devoid of personality, as is most of the slaves that Ivan tries to befriend with. There is nobody else here that I can say is even worth caring about.
So yeah, guys, in short, the writing here is just bad. If this thing were a cheesy, cornball Sci-Fi action flick, I probably would've given this film a lot less slack with it's writing. However, considering that this movie felt more like a generic fantasy movie with no interesting characters, I can't give the bad writing a pass here. It's just not possible with the kind of movie that was made for the Sci-Fi Channel. Now, what about the acting? Well, most of it isn't really good either. The only exception to all this is Bruce Campbell. He really is the only actor in this movie who's trying his hardest to make this film work in his favor. And while I certainly can give him a ton of credit for trying, everyone else, though, I'm gonna say, just completely sucks. There is no other actor here that's even remotely trying. They all phoned it in and it shows. No one else here tried, though honestly, I'm gonna blame a lot of that on the script here because, as I've said plenty of times beforehand, you can only do so much with a script that's given to you. And aside from Bruce Campbell, no other actor here stood out in a positive way. So yeah, that's acting here in a nutshell for ya.
Special effects are teetering on being a mixed bag. Now again, I should let you guys know that since this is a movie made for the Sci-Fi Channel, you really should not expect any miracles when it comes to the special effects. Because, 9 times out of 10, the special effects are mostly garbage when it comes to Sci-Fi Channel original movies. And this movie is definitely not much of an exception here. I will say that I do like the designs of the aliens in themselves. And in some cases, they actually do have some shots where the aliens look practical. In other words, we have some costumed aliens. And if there were more of this in the movie, I think it would've improved the special effects greatly. However, seeing as how they are mostly rendered in CG, it brings the kinda cool-looking alien designs down a bit. The CG here is really cheap-looking, and while it's certainly not the worst offender in terms of awful low budget special effects, that doesn't really make it look good either. Like I said, the costuming on the aliens look pretty good, until they are rendered in CG and...yeah, they could've looked a whole lot better. So unfortunately, as is, the CG here is what brings this movie down greatly. Blood effects, for what few there are, are actually decent, I can give them a little leeway there. Costuming for everyone else looks OK, I guess. It's not really great, but it's also far from the worst thing I've seen in terms of costuming. So...I guess that counts for something.
Camerawork here is pretty good. Lighting here is lit pretty well. The sound-mixing is actually competent. And our score here is ultimately nothing special. It's just plainly average to sum it up. So yeah, the technical work here is fine for what it is.
But ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Alien Apocalypse"? Unfortunately, no, I cannot. Like I said earlier, if this thing were a cheesy, goofy cornball Sci-Fi action flick, I would probably say it's worth watching at least once. However, though, I can't really do that here because the movie is completely different from how it actually turned out. I could maybe recommend it if you're a fan of either B movies or Bruce Campbell in general, but I still wouldn't really say that it's completely worth it just for him alone. Though if you really want to take a shot at it, I suppose you could find a copy of this thing for dirt cheap on any home media or on any streaming service, assuming that it's running on the latter. But otherwise, guys, I would just not bother with this film at all. It's just bad, and it's not really much of a Sci-Fi film to begin with. It's just a boring, generic fantasy movie that's disguised as a Sci-Fi movie. But with that said, there is one positive I can say about this film. As I was watching the previews before the movie started, one of the films they showed on here was something that kinda surprised me, but then again, now that I'm thinking about it, this movie was put out by Anchor Bay Entertainment. And one of the films they showed during the previews was "Dead & Breakfast". And upon seeing that preview, I kinda wanted to just go and watch that film again. And now that this film is finally over, I'm gonna go and do that right now. And this film, while it sucked, at least reminded me that I can be watching a much better movie right now.
So, that's what I'm gonna go do next, guys, as we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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