Intolerance II: The Invasion

Once upon a time there was a war between earth and the planet Zog. The two vast space fleets took off to do battle but, at the point of contact in deep space, the earth crews were smelling their girlfriend's underpants while the Zog's were distracted watching porn - and so they passed one another. 30 years later the Zog have invaded earth unnoticed. One man, Dwight Hokum, is at an all-night wine tasting when he sees the Zog removing their heads. He sets out to warn the world and kill those he sees who are Zogs - however the world brands him a killer and doesn't believe him. When Dwight finds that even his President is a Zog he has no option but to strike out on his own to save the world.

Watching South Park the other night led me to stumble into this animation with the same sort of humour but a lot less polished. The film sets itself out as being childishly crude from the start - the battle forces miss each other due to panty sniffing and porn watching. From this point on it does regularly fall into crudity is so basic that it isn't funny - for example a masturbation machine that makes it painful to avoid guilt, the President getting head under his desk etc. It's a shame because the idea behind the film is so off the wall that it clearly had some imagination in it.

The animation is very basic but quite effective. It is a little creepy and not afraid to be a little violent or disturbing at times. However again, the crudity spoils much that is of value here. The narrator is the funniest bit about the film, with his deadpan delivery, but even he falls at times.

Overall this had potential but it ruins itself by falling into smutty, crude humour that is delivered in such a basic, unpolished way that it is unfunny and feels a little tasteless. Bare in mind that I had just watched South Park and I still felt this way - so it wasn't just me being all moral and upright! Has some things of merit but lets it self down badly.

A decent enough, though slightly obvious, animation about aliens from the planet Zog who have their heads and their genitals in the opposite places to us humans. They arrive on earth, cut off their genitals (which look like heads), put them on their heads (which look like genitals), and blend in with the rest of the population. By a stroke of coincidence, the only human who ever sees them take off their heads to reveal their true selves is a redneck called Dwight Yokum, who takes it upon himself to save the world from these creatures.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that it's all a metaphor for racism and other prejudices, particularly with the fact that - despite all the talk of doom and the downfall of the human race at the hands of the Zogs - the aliens don't actually do anything wrong. They just live peacefully with the rest of earth and it's actually very difficult to tell the difference most of the time (so much so that Dwight accidentally marries a Zog). And the message is topped off by the 'surprise' ending. It's certainly not very subtle at getting its point across.

But the animation is quite interesting - lots of scratchy black and dark colours - and the slightly amateur look can easily be forgiven as the film probably only cost a miniscule amount of money to produce. At the end, the human rocketship that had been sent to invade the Zogs finally arrives at its destination. I don't know if this means there's a third part,but if there is I wouldn't mind seeing it.

ZOG is an acronym for the ultra right wing theory that all the governments in the world are being manipulated by a Jewish conspiracy . ZOG itself stands for Zionist Occupation Government so when the aliens in this animated short were from the planet Zog the name stuck in my mind , and when the first humans to be taken over by the Zog aliens were members of the Klu Klux Klan I fell out of my seat laughing . This must be surely a reference to conspiracy theorists following their own despicable racist oddball agenda I thought , how very witty .

For the most part INTOLERANCE 2 THE INVASION is a very witty animated short film that follows the same basic premise of INVASION OF THE PUPPET MASTERS and QUATERMASS 2 of aliens infiltrating the human race , or more specifically centres of authority like the police and the government and it's left to everyman hero Dwight Hokum to save humanity from the Zog invasion force

This would have been a very enjoyable animated short if it wasn't for the point that Bob has mentioned - The humour spoils this short . I mentioned the reference to ZOG but after seeing this I ended up thinking that this type of biting satire must surely be coincidental since the humour is very unsophisticated , schoolboyish and near the knuckle . In fact I would go further than say the pathetic attempts at humour not only spoils the story but ruins it . There's nothing worse than someone thinking they're funny when they're just pathetic