La criatura

When I sat down to watch "Alien Lockdown" (aka "Creature"), I hadn't even heard about the movie, nor did I even know who starred in it. I will say that when I saw John Savage's name on the screen, I felt that there was potential for the movie being adequate.

It should be said that "Alien Lockdown" is a low budget movie. And while that is being said, I will also have to say that I have seen far worse low budget sci-fi horror movies than this one.

The movie is about some alien creature going on a rampage in an isolated facility, and a group of highly trained soldiers are sent in to take care of the situation. However, they come to learn some dark truths and find that all are not playing on the same team.

The creature or alien in the movie was a strange hybrid of three already famous movie monsters; the xenomorph (from the "Alien" franchise), the Yautja (the predator creature from the "Predator" franchise) and the Brundlefly (from "The Fly"). And truth be told, then it actually worked out well enough, despite it not really being all that menacing or having quite enough time on the screen.

As for the acting in the movie, well people were doing good jobs with their given roles, and it was indeed John Savage (playing Dr. Woodman) and Michelle Goh (playing Talon) whom stood out as the most memorable performances in the movie.

There is a good amount of action throughout the movie, but it just doesn't make up for the low budget feel to the movie.

All in all, a less than average sci-fi horror movie, but it is worth watching a single time if you have nothing else at hand.

I've seen worse. Which is not exactly a compliment for this movie considering some of the utter garbage I have encountered in the last few months on the Sci Fi Channel and elsewhere. Nonetheless, while this movie was bad, it falls more under the rubric of the traditional bad Grade B movie which just rips off its entire plot, creature, setting and everything else from superior movies, but still manages to be mildly entertaining. Indeed if this movie had been the first of its kind, there would even have been a few laudable things to comment on -- the unrelentingly dark and creepy remote laboratory, a suitably vicious creature which kills in gory fashion (and looks like they spent a little money creating) etc. But as it is, its just one cliché after another. Its been done better many times before. But then again, its been done worse. If you want to see how bad a movie with "Alien" in its title can be, check out something called "Alien 51". Comparatively this is a work of art, and while I am glad I did not rent it, I am not entirely upset at having turned on the TV to catch it. For fans of the genre, not good, but not pluck your eyes out terrible either.

Rented this one last night after having only seen the cover of the DVD. I thought, what the hell, might even like it. First off, the lead has some sort of Lucy Liu meets Ellen Ripley vibe going on...weird! And the supporting cast, well lets say they've got as much talent as an extra on a bad Star Trek episode (the one who gets killed right away). Except for John Savage and James Marschall,who have obviously have sunk to an all time low. But hey, what about the effects? Things look like a TV show so don't expect anything flashy. If they show this movie on late night TV, I might even consider it as above average. And that's because of the atmosphere which is actually pretty good, but turn off the sounds because the music just made me wanna kill myself...Note to soundguy: A sci-fi movie is not a Simpsons episode! So if your a sci-fi/light horror fan and you want to see something totally unoriginal, check this one out! I've rented it together with Starship Troopers 2...hope that it's better than this one, or maybe I should stop renting crap...hmmmm?

I was happy to see a new Sci Fi flick with John Savage in it, but I unfortunately only watched a half hour of it before I became disinterested. >From what I saw of it, a scientist (Savage) was using an alien for some experiment when it got loose, thus the reason for the "Lockdown". The rest that I saw was when some commandos came in to try to contain the situation. I immediately became bored as I watched and waited for these professionals to do their job, but it was all a bunch of dark corners, smoky hallways and people disappearing. The alien appeared early on in the movie but I don't know what the heck it was. I just know that I was disappointed in this movie and do not have any desire to watch it again.

The film begins with narration telling us about a meteor that crashed on Earth thousands of years ago. People in the area found a large emerald-like gem that turned out to have "special powers". Of course it changed hands over the years and yadda yadda yadda, finally ending up buried and only rumored to exist in legend. We cut to the present, and a team of archaeologists unearth a fabled crate/trunk/arc that turns out to contain the gem. Then, quicker than we can wink, we've changed plots and we're in a secret government mountain lair where scientists are working on a "super-soldier" that is a genetic manipulation of 100 different species, incorporating the traits of each that are most appropriate to killing things and surviving while being attacked. Of course, this beastie gets loose, and the bulk of Alien Lockdown concerns a Special Forces military group that infiltrates the secret government facility and attempts to take care of business. Eventually the plots are tied together more firmly, but it takes awhile.

Alien Lockdown is wildly uneven. Some aspects are excellent and other aspects are pretty miserable. At times it becomes unintentionally funny. But overall, this is an enjoyable little low-budget sci-fi/horror/action flick, primarily recommended for hardcore fans of that genre combination who try to see everything made.

For me, the most consistently positive aspect of the film was the lighting and cinematography. Through a combination of unusual lighting and film processing schemes, director Tim Cox achieves a very refreshing and aesthetically pleasing variety of colors and textures. Cox, by the way, was also responsible for another Sci-Fi Channel film that I enjoyed even more, Larva (2005), which also had interesting lighting and cinematography. Some scenes in Alien Lockdown have a golden yellow/brown/orange glow. Others emphasize different colors. Many lean towards monochromaticism. By the end of the climax, Cox has cinematographer John S. Bartley almost shooting in black & white, with just a slight tint. Colors are very important to the film--there is some important dialogue at one point about red and green. A more studied look at the film from a color symbolism perspective might prove revealing.

The cinematography is good for other reasons, too. For example, there is some very interesting hand-held work that is effectively employed to amp up the tension of a scene where two characters are trapped in a cage. And there are some unusual subtle touches, such as a pinpoint of light from a laser scope that stays on a character during a closely framed talking heads dialogue scene.

At the beginning of the film, I thought I was in for quite a treat. The film starts with a beautiful orange sky as we pan over dark mountains. Even though we next hear some slightly convoluted dialogue, which is usually a bad sign, the visuals remain attractive enough to override any mounting disappointment. The next scene is a very unique sequence of "warring Romans" silhouetted against a red background, then we move to the present (well, or questionably the future, due to later clues) and an Indiana Jones-ish adventure flavor. I was completely in the palm of Tim Cox' hand at this point; I was fully geared up for a relatively obscure 10 out of 10.

Unfortunately, things take a turn south not long afterward as we encounter what turns out to be the core of the plot--the super-soldier government stuff I mentioned above. Actually, this section isn't too bad until the Special Forces "commandos" arrive on the scene. There are a couple problems with this middle section of the film, the main one being that Cox and his army of writers do not let us get to know the characters except for the extremely attractive leader, Talon (Michelle Goh).

With such a collection of writers, you'd think there would be more of a plot to the middle of the film. But instead, we're treated to a series of random Aliens (1986)/Starship Troopers 2 (2004)-like scenes. There is a lot of searching through similar-looking corridors and rooms. There are a lot of weapons and "macho code talk". It had all the excitement of 30 minutes of padding.

To make this section slightly worse, the dialogue is riddled with clichés and ridiculous non-sequiturs. Take for example this "intellectual" exchange between Talon and token "evil genius" Dr. Woodman (John Savage, looking an awful lot like Brad Dourif to me):

Woodman: "This is a morality tale involving all of humanity. And you will be living out the first chapter."

Talon: "You better start making sense real fast. Stop with all this philosophical b.s."

Woodman: "After you've studied your humanities, and history, and mathematics at he levels I have, there is no other explanation. This is light against darkness, right against wrong, good against evil, only now, we are not dictating the rules!"

But things improve quite a bit again by the time we get to the climax, even though the monster is a not-very-veiled amalgamation of Alien and Predator--we even get a moment out of Alien 3 (1992) with a "near kiss" between the beastie and our heroine. There is good gore throughout the film, if you're into that, and the plot gets better as we learn of a couple double crosses that make the rest of the film more interesting in retrospect.