Alien vs. Ninja

Unfortunately this promising title fails to deliver. When I started watching this I didn't expect so much goofy and campy humor.

Im a great fan of Keita Amemia's work, especially the ZEIRAM series and MIRAI NINJA. So when I saw the poster and the trailer for this film I expected something similar - cool Asian sci-fi action, with great atmosphere, created by the blend of genres. Aliens and ninjas - looked like this can't go wrong! But it did. There are a lot of boring dialogs. The movie's pace is messed up. Even for its 80 minutes it is still slow. It starts with a great opening shot that leaves you thirsty for adrenaline and you don't get it for the next 25 minutes. The real problem is the poor comedy attempts. The parody elements are annoying and they just ruin it all, which is a shame. It has a production value high enough to make it a modern B-classic.

It's obviously a B-movie and no one expects state of the art effects from it. Actually I prefer the practical effects - puppets, costumes and animatronics are a breath of fresh air in this CGI era.

What I like the most about it is the work of the art department. The character and creature designs are cool and the costumes are really neat. Some look like live cation versions of manga drawings. I guess that Ninja Gaiden fans would appreciate the looks of the main character.

The martial art scenes are decent, but nothing really remarkable. Directing, camera-work and acting are mediocre at best.

Alien vs Ninja is a great concept and I regret to see it wasted like that.

I've never seen an Alien vs. Predator movie, but I can now say I've seen the (probably superior) Alien vs. Ninja.

This still isn't great, but for a movie called Alien vs. Ninja, it could've been much worse. The biggest criticism I have is that it felt a bit like it was trying to be a Ryûhei Kitamura film (what with the crazy blend of genres and goofy action scenes and all), but didn't have the same magic his stuff has. This is no Final Wars, Versus, or Azumi, even if some of its more gonzo moments suggests it kind of wants to scratch the same itch those films do.

The schlock in this film is sometimes charming though, making it better than anything the Asylum farts out. It's one-note as a movie, and all the action/alien scenes do start to feel repetitive, even with the runtime just being 80 minutes.

But it's the sort of movie that made for perfectly mindless weekend viewing, and I had a decent amount of fun with Alien vs. Ninja, flaws and all.

I sat down to watch this on Netflix assuming it would be just plain awful based on the title alone. What I actually got is an low-budget poorly dubbed but ultimately very fun gore-fest of a film. Some of the action sequences actually aren't half bad and while the CGI and monster suit both are low-budget and the dubbing is just awful there is some semi-decent fight choreography. There is also a lot of humor, some intentional, some not so much.

If you sit down with low expectations you can get a lot out of this film. For one thing there's a beautiful Asian ninja to look at, a goofy rubber alien, gory ridiculous death scenes that seem like something out FEAST or a Sam Raimi flick.

Not sure how highly I'd really be willing to recommend it but you could do a lot worse, and I mean a lot worse (I'm looking at you Thankskilling).

This is a strange Anime-like, Power Rangers reminding Action-Splatter-Comedy. Doesn't this say all? Yeah it's sounds stupid but it's still entertaining as hell. Although it's done really cheap, reminding of some strange 90s series, I had to watch it until the end. It was original and contained quite a lot of cool ideas, the movie didn't take itself seriously and kept a nice grade of tension which I truly did not expect. The actors performance was nice, I wouldn't say the actors were bad at all they simply played strange roles. The whole feeling you get watching this is like: I'm watching something old-school, but no you are not! I have to admit, I will watch it again, perhaps not tomorrow but maybe this year and I won't regret it. Especially for folks who play video-games this might be really enjoyable.

ALIEN VS NINJA is a low rent sci-fi flick from Japan which basically sees a director assembling a handful of actors, taking them out to the woods and filming a series of short, brutal and ballistic fight sequences while trying to string together something resembling a plot. It's kind of like the zombie film VERSUS, yet lacking that movie's finesse and vitality, probably because the budget is a great deal lower. Instead of a plot, we get cheesy humour, even cheesier computer graphics and the dodgiest looking alien since the days of the '50s-era B-movie.

Sexy ninja Mika Hijii spends much of the running time battling the alien threat in a skin-tight PYC costume; the director ensues she's either doing the splits or flying through the air artfully at all times. The aliens are silly and kind of fun, and the hyper-kinetic action can be a hoot at times. There are touches of black comedy, like a crow plucking at a severed head's eyeball, thrown into the mix as well.

Is this a good movie? Far from it: it's dumb, plot less, predictable and clearly made on the cheap. Is it an entertaining movie? To a degree, yes; not something I'd consider watching again (it lacks the genuine B-movie intricacy of a film like CYBORG COP) but it passes the time for undemanding genre fans.