Alien fury - Sbarco alieno

In San Diego, the powerful Bill Templer (Dale Midkiff) leads a governmental defense agency, and after the explosion of an expensive satellite, the government intends to shut-down his agency. He frauds the government and the population with images showing the danger of an alien attack to justify the explosion of the equipment. The aliens were in the hidden side of the moon ready for attacking Earth. Templer convinces American government to send a nuclear weapon and blows the alien force up before the invasion of Earth. Detective Kevin Anjanette (Dondré T. Whitfield) finds that the images used by Bill Templer are forged and threatens his plans to regain power. This story is so absurd and ridiculous that becomes funny. `Alien Fury' hooked my attention until the last scene to check the capacity of a writer and a director to make such an unbelievable mess. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): `Fúria Alienígena' (`Alien Fury')

This has all the hallmarks of a 'made for TV' production, complete with cheap actors, locations and other low production values. It would seem to be a first feature for a high percentage of the cast and this alone will always knock a film back. However, we found it to be more than just 'watchable'. The plot is full of double crosses, misdirections etc that kept it interesting without the need to cry out in frustration at the plot holes. In fact, if the plot had been given the hollywood big budget treatment, a script-massage and a recasting, it would have probably been a good performer in the cinema. Shame.

A fatuous plot, wooden acting, stereotyped characters, dialogue noteworthy only for its predictability, littered with set-piece cliches, this film combines all these defects into a unique representation of cinematic dysfunction which is symptomatic of the dearth of film making talent in contemporary cinema. This one makes the typical 1930's Three Stooges offerings look like epics ! My advice to prospective viewers is 'Don't waste your time (and money) on this insult to the intelligence.

Well, few surprises in this movie. Alien invasion, or is it? A smart scientist figures it out, sinister gummint organization, nuclear weapon launched, abort sent, etc, etc.

The characters - almost every one of them was over acted. The hero, with his Clint Eastwood breathy voice. His wife, the beautiful doctor with always-perfect hair and makeup who works in a public hospital: puh-lease. The slavering general. Cardboard cutouts, every one of them. Grace Phillips in her braless strappy top (and to her credit she looks OK in it) gives some idea of where one of the target demographics of this movie was. The female mud-wrestler type cast as a security guard could be another clue. And almost all the other women, who for some strange reason had short skirts and very high heel shoes, might be yet another.

Special effects were reasonable, although the multiple alien spacecraft sitting in the crater, each one an obvious copy/paste of each other... at first, I thought it was a computer wallpaper. And the stories with the nitrogen inhalers - please, give us nerdy audience types at least a tiny sliver of background knowledge.

I think that the worst sin this movie committed was that it couldn't make up its mind as to what combination of seriousness and comedy it was going to be. But again to be fair, if you set your expectations low enough you might well be entertained.

Note to any future George Lucas wannabees: Be sure to include credible spacecrafts and aliens; not badly drawn pictures of spacecrafts and aliens that look exactly like humans. The plot (that keeps changing to keep things confusing) could have been interesting if the producer had concentrated on that aspect and not on how good-looking the girls should be or how tough the guards should act. It´s cr@p - pure and simple. It has no saving grace. Put it to sleep.