Alien vs. Ninja

Plot? See title.

Low budget? Yep. Filmed on digi-cam? Yes. Terrible CGI? You bet. Men in rubber suits straight out of Power Rangers? Oh man, you've seriously got to see it to believe how cool it is!

Word to the wise: if you can't appreciate flicks like The Story of Ricky, you may not like this. It's an action-comedy, the effects add to the fun, there are plenty of cool bits and if you like kung fu this should leave you pumped-up.

Watch this film!

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A great little romp of Japanese cartoonish madness. If you love weirdly titled, poorly shot films, then this is for you. It has bad CGI and even worse suits/puppets. How can I possibly defend it? I enjoyed it dammit. It had action, adventure, betrayal, and never let its budget get in the way of imagination. The little alien critters were grotesquely simple, while the big alien dudes were uncomfortably phallic. The comedy mostly came from bizarre deaths, and though these were more normal than usual (for this type of movie) the sword fights were more than convincing enough. This is the kind of film that young teenagers make with their friends on a nice summer afternoon. Only difference is, that here we have grown-ups that should know better, and with that immaturity comes innocence and excitement.

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.

This is another weird, wacky Japanese genre effort in the same vein as Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl and Robo-Geisha. The title says it all: a group of ancient Japanese ninja end up going claw to sword (and eventually sword to sword) with some monstrous aliens (that look suspiciously like people in moderately expensive Halloween costumes). 

There's really no more story beyond that and a hinted at love triangle between two of the male shinobi and their female counterpart. Nothing about the "aliens" is explained, they just show up and start swiping people's heads off and fiercely trying to grab boobs. Alien vs Ninja isn't as gross or ultra-violent as many similar movies can be, but it does have its moments. People get ripped in half and have little mind-controlling aliens crawl up their noses, and plenty of pink pepto bismol alien blood flows all over the place. 

AvN won't win any awards for storytelling or production values, but it's a goofy and occasionally fun way to waste some time. There are better similar movies, but genre fans should find it worthwhile.

Again and again people are having trouble with flicks coming from Japan. They used to be extremely gory but the scene over there evolved too and got a bit away from the gore. Still, they deliver weird flicks with fast moving ninja's or other persons. In other words, you have to understand there way of living, I mean the Eastern philosophy, to appreciate such a flick. I've waited a few months to get my hand on an official release, finally it's out in our region. And it was worth the wait for me. I enjoyed it because it had a bit of humour and gore in it. Naturally you have to dig ninja to enjoy it. First of all, the alien will be a let down for so many people. It doesn't look like "alien" it's more based on Godzilla and sometimes it's CGI and sometimes it's a man in a suit. Even the ninja's look a bit weird, you have the macho type more busy with his hair, a coward too old to fight and a real ninja. Naturally there's a female ninja too and it's funny to see that the alien wanted to grap her breasts. There is so much fun in it that you can't take it seriously. But it clocks in under 90 minutes and that's good. The first 20 minutes is all about stupidity and comedy, after that the gore and red stuff appears. If you know that the director also was responsible for "Ninja" then you know what I mean. You love this one or you will hate it, there's no in-between.