The Advanced Guard

This thing was bad. Really bad. I mean, low budget can sometimes be very inspiring, but not this. The story was so off-the-shelf, the alien's behaviour so illogical, the characters so clichéed. I found nothing good in it. And I did try.

While it seemed long and drawn out in a few places, it was put into context so that you can understand why it had to be that bland in places. The aliens were searching for a world to use the bodies for own shells. Each world they destroyed supplied the bodies they needed to survive. They could not stay in their own bodies for long. The use of the new bodies was normally only a year long. Their bodies used the energy in their new bodies so that they would have to recharge their new bodies on a daily basis. The signs of courage, caring and self sacrifice demonstrated by the earthlings was the cause for the saving of the earth. Kept you wondering what was going to happen next and which of the alien examiners would win, the good or the bad.

I didn't realise this was a "made for TV movie" when I rented the DVD. Even by that standard this movie is very tedious and cliched. Not to be recommended. I didn't understand the significance of the naked female that appears a couple of times at the beginning of the movie. Well, perhaps I do now.

This is a very enjoyable TV movie. Yes, it is a low-budget film. But the writing is strong and the sets are done well. What is nice about the human characters in this movie is that they all act like real people. Each one has moments of anger and fear, but each also show strong, decent, heroic sides. There aren't any "weakling" or selfish jerk characters. The ending is no surprise, but getting there is what counts. And this nice little film delivers the goods.

Admittedly, I wasn't expecting much from The Advanced Guard, but part of me was hoping for a somewhat watchable movie even with flaws. The Advanced Guard in the end was as far away from watchable. I know it's low budget, this wouldn't have mattered so much if it did look halfway decent. Instead it was pure tack, with the lighting lacking any kind of atmosphere and imagination and the sets looking gaudy in colour and like a cheaply done television show set. The editing also looked like it was done on a bacon slicer and that's being kind, and the special effects for the aliens(using suspended animation that wasn't very subtly used, both in how it looked and how often it was used)were so fake-looking. The way people look, dress and act looks dated also and would look more at home in the 70s. The dialogue was stilted and corny and not in an infectious way, this was really poor lazy scripting with not one single memorable line. The story was so silly to the point it was illogical(the naked woman thing I too don't get the significance of and consider her utilisation irrelevant), and also tedious and predictable. The ending also showed a writer who had very quickly run out of ideas. I'd forgive the characters being clichéd if they were interesting, but actually these characters- applying to the aliens as well as the victims- had no personality or development whatsoever so at the end you are like why should I care? The acting is pretty much non-existent. All in all, shockingly bad in all departments. 1/10 Bethany Cox