Outpost 37: l'ultime espoir

Alien invasion movies are going to keep coming; no matter how god awful the recent stock of them have been ("Battle LA", "Battleship") it seems like there is still money that financiers still think should be thrown at blowing E.T out of the water. But if we're going to keep going down this road, it's clear that we could do much worse than the kinda-different "Alien Outpost" from writer-director Jabar Raisani. Raisani, a visual effects supervisor on quite a few mainstream projects (most recently "Game of Thrones"), gives us his first feature here, a combination of "Starship Troopers" and Sebastian Junger's war documentary "Restrepo." So the Earth gets invaded in 2021, a year later the alien Heavies have almost all been extinguished except for some stragglers who are being taken care of by military outposts around the world. 10 years later those outposts have been defunded and the men fighting the war have been forgotten. As if the real-life comparison doesn't hit you over the head enough already, a film crew has been assigned to document the efforts of Outpost 37, situated between Pakistan and Afghanistan. (That's all that area needs- Jihadist Aliens).

"Outpost's" approach is kinda cynical. Remember all those foreign kids Michael Bay has running around, celebrating when the Americans stop the Earth from getting destroyed? Well, that only has a "few-year" shelf life. The soldiers are at risk not just from aliens but also the locals, both of which likely to pull an ambush on the rocky and rough terrain. There are moments when things get intense, and there are moments when the guys just sit around/contribute to film crew interviews- bullshitting with each other, cleaning weapons, practical jokes, telling war stories, trying to add some sense to the mayhem. Despite every character being given a "bare-bones" personality, it's surprising how much a lot of this comes off as genuine, especially like in a scene where a soldier honors a fallen friend.

It's a shame that Raisani doesn't have as much confidence in his alien creations. We're either given brief glimpses or shots from far away. I want to say they resemble the Orcs from "Lord of the Rings" but I just couldn't tell. They also don't really do much besides attack during gun battles (machine, electric, laser, lot of different types of guns here), any other reason for having them inhabit this region makes about as much sense as the Sunni-Shiite conflict does to most Americans. We get a few decent battles and ideas but Raisani, along with co-writer Blake Clifton, mostly just gives us an under-baked war-documentary where aliens are just there for target practice.

This movie deserves so much more attention and praise than it have gotten. You need to give this movie a chance, the acting is good. The story although slow to begin with is very engaging and well written. I have heard people say that the special effects are cheep, but honestly i have no idea where they get it from, first of all there aren't that many and the ones that are there looks perfectly fine.

Regarding the story, its feels like what a sequel to "Battle Los Angeles"could have been. So if you liked that movie, i guarantee you will like this one, even if you like "war/conflict" movies you will like it, if you like sci-fi you will like it.

I personally really enjoy these movies that come in from the side lines, having not been over hyped or expected for 6 months, and then out of no where it will provide you with an hour and 45 minutes of very well made entertainment.

This was a really well made film. As a disabled veteran I enjoyed the insight into military camaraderie. Well worth my time. Shooting the goats of the locals was a jab at soldiers that I didn't think was accurate or beneficial to the film. Hence the 8 instead of 9 for the film. The alien technologies mixed in with identifiable everyday "Earth" elements was well done. It did feel like it was encroaching on Earth and did not belong. The staging and cinematography was top notch. I really hope they do a sequel. I think you will see more from this director and his team. Being a scifi buff I again liked the blending of reality with fantasy. I could envision something like this happening.

While a little slow at times, this SciFi delivers a story that unfolds like a documentary, reminds me of district 9 without being a copy of it. Its refreshing to see a SciFi with a story, without a large amount of special effects, about an Earth we can relate to without too many futuristic changes. For a low budget film I think it turned out well.

I make it a habit if the film looks interesting then I do not pay attention to reviews unless there are many with less than 3 stars. Most people are very critical in ratings and many 5 star films I have liked and few big budget I thought were waste of time and money.

This was worth the time and money.

I'm on the fence of 7 or 8 stars so I gave it an 8 because I really think I will see it again.

I hope to see a sequel

The title Outpost 37 is much better than the alternative Alien Outpost, the latter seeming to suggest some crappy Uwe Boll type film.

In fact I was very pleasantly surprised by the premise, the acting, and the cinematography. Although very aware that this was a low budget film with a necessary limit on special effects, I was engrossed by the story all the way to an end - which, albeit a little obvious some way before, was a satisfactory one. It left some questions and highlighted a couple of plot holes, but it was still way better than its budget would suggest.

What effects there were were effective, the cinematography and the editing sharp and snappy, and the actors surprisingly above par and very comfortable in their roles, making the film believable all the way through.

All in all a good couple of hours well spent.