Alien Country

This is one crazy, braindead fun ride of a movie :)

What else would you expect from a director called "Boston McConnaughey" :)

To say it does not take itself too seriously would be the understatement of the year :)

You notice the love the filmmakers put into every scene - and most of them work, they either make you laugh (a lot) or scare you (well, just a little bit, it is a crazy comedy after all).

There are some plotholes and things that don't quite add up - but I didn't care, because the movie was so much fun to watch.

The actors are all very good and although the script is (intentionally) silly you do care about the characters they portray and really hope they all survive and also save the planet from an alien invasion :)

I had never heard about this 2024 sci-fi comedy titled "Alien Country" from director Boston McConnaughey. And with it being a movie that I was not familiar with, of course I opted to watch it. And I will say that the movie's cover certainly was interesting enough.

However, writers Renny Grames and Boston McConnaughey failed to deliver a script that won me over. I gave up on the movie with 30 minutes left before the movie ended. But I have to admit that I was not impressed with the storyline one bit, and it just failed to entertain me. And with the movie being totally devoid of comedy elements, it was a dry patch to sit through.

While I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list, I will say that the acting performances were good, despite the fact that the script failed to entertain me.

Visually, then "Alien Country" was good. The special effects were nicely made and looked good. But the effects had little impact on the movie for me, since the script was rubbish.

This was definitely not my cup of tea. And I have no intentions of returning to finish watching the remaining 30 minutes of the movie, because I just simply don't care about the characters or the storyline in the movie.

"Alien Country" was, for a lack of other words, generic and mundane.

My rating of "Alien Country" lands on a three out of ten stars.

So I ran across this by accident. The trailers reminded me of other small-town alien invasion films like "Alien Opponent" and gave it a spin.

The plot requires you to take certain things on faith (it gets a bit muddled when talking about opening and closing the portals) but the dialog is witty and has that small-town charm nailed down pretty well.

I don't think anyone in the film you will recognize, but they certainly do their best and genuinely seem to be having fun with the plot.

Given the probably modest budget, the SFX/CGI was quite well done. The film was shot in Utah and the stunning scenery certainly lends an air of authenticity to the small-town feel.

It's difficult to judge how skilled the director/ writing cast is given a singular offering (this film) but I'm going to keep an eye on his output in the future.

Overall, if you want a fun lighthearted (and witty!) take on alien invasions, give this charming flick a watch.

Two bike riding treasure hunters dig up a glowy thing in the desert. There is a glowy alien globe. With heat on their tail, they stash the suitcase in a car. The car is used in a demolition derby. The car crashes and explodes in a glowy flash. The crew finds a glowy mechanism. The glowy thing opens a glowy triangle portal to another world. There are other aliens. There is a good alien. There is a bad alien. There are alien dinosaurs that glows differently and explodes in glowy spores when they get shot.

It took until the girl singing country for me to get the double meaning of the title. These are country boys and girls dealing with the alien world. With the availability of computer animation, the difference between amateur and professional special effects is not as far as it used to be. One can still see the amateurism in the acting. They are generally amateur actors trying their best. The story is a mess. I would like for them to try harder with the good alien. Maybe they don't have the expertise to do makeup, but he could at least dress him differently. Sometimes, this group combo almost achieves some comedic turns. Again, they're trying their best. It's just not good enough.

My highest praise of a film is saying 'I want to see it again' and I want to see Alien Country again. I've followed the development of this film for a few years. I had really high hopes for Boston and Renny's first feature film, and they knocked it out of the park. The theatrical premiere was unreal, they even had the old car from the film in the lobby of the theater (with it's 1970s BYU parking stickers and all). The film is just an epic and fun ride with very rewarding surprises all along the way (my favorite of those surprises, without doing a spoiler, will just say 'The Final Headshot'). Excited for the next project from these two.