High Plains Invaders

Let me start off by saying that it's better than most of the pot boiler Sci Fi channel movies. It makes a tiny bit of pseudo science fiction sense.

I'll start off with a pet peeve of mine, ridiculous gun handling. They mixed extremely modern guns with period guns with no rhyme or reason. Modern Smith and Wesson revolvers in stainless steel with modern target sights and ventilated ribs are used side by side with ones that almost could be period. It's sloppy, very sloppy.

It's no gem. It's pleasant, something to watch when you've had a bad day and are just in the mood to relax to something mindless. Unfortunately I found many of the characters ridiculously bad. The worst was the woman bounty hunter. She was just too 21st century politically correct, but she wasn't the only one.

Considering the utter garbage which has come from the SyFi Channel in the last few years, this movie was quite pleasantly surprising.

The plot was reasonably fresh and mostly logical. The actors delivered acceptable performances. The outfits were good. The setting was quite acceptable and looked like the northwestern U.S. CGI, if not great, was at least better than typical SyFi fair. The ending was, of course, predictable, and left unanswered questions.

A nice point was that the mandatory scientist (Jules) was not the typical all-knowledgeable font of information. Although he did make a few statements which included knowledge which did not yet exist in 1890, along with some that were just plain wrong; this role actually made fairly good sense within the situation.

There were a number of questionable items. The female bounty hunter is not something which would be likely in 1890. Many, but not all, of the firearms where very clearly modern. (Does anyone who produces movies ever listen to someone with knowledge in this field?) Finally, the repartee between characters who are opposed to each other before the arrival of the "invaders" begins to strain credulity.

Altogether and unexpectedly, this was a movie worth the watching.

Okay, this is far from perfect, but it is watchable compared to other SyFy channel movies, most of which range from really quite bad to unwatchable. Granted the story is formulaic, the writing silly and weak, the characters clichéd and the ending abrupt. However, what makes High Plains Invaders better than most of SyFy's outputs is that in particular while it is not high art visually it doesn't look cheap either. The photography and editing is less slapdash than usual, the lighting has more atmosphere and the effects are much less crude and used fairly well. The music and sound effects for a SyFy movie are also above average, the film's direction while hardly genius or influential actually feels as though there is direction evident and the pacing is much more even than usual, going at a brisker pace without feeling too rushed apart from the ending. Also while the characters are clichéd, James Marsters, Sanny Van Hetteren and Cindy Sampson's above decent performances stopped me from feeling bored and disengaged by them. So all in all, could've done with a lot of improvements but actually compared to a lot of SyFy's stuff it is one of their more tolerable movies. 6/10 Bethany Cox

The concept of the movie interested me but unfortunately the film itself while decent still isn't something memorable. Technically it's better than the average syfy movie but... that's not really a compliment.

The characters actually are slightly deeper than most stock archetypes you'd find inhabiting similar film scripts. Unfortunately long before it's necessary too many sign the "doomed" roster, and honestly knowing who's going to survive or not takes away from the film too much.

Interesting creatures. Unfortunately that only means we're not going to be seeing them appear in one of the occasional good syfy movies. Ultimately I was hoping for another film like "Aztec Rex" where the cheesy scenario and interesting characters in danger provide an entertaining film; apparently it wasn't to be.

In the Old West of 1892, a bank robber is about to become guest of honor at a neck tie party. Suddenly, giant metallic scorpion type things appear and break up the party. But just when this looks like it will be another body-count sideshow, an interesting story emerges.

The budget isn't extravagant, but much is accomplished with what they have. The style of the story is a tip of the hat to the vision of Jules Verne (who is mentioned in the film), and it shows some real imagination. The invaders also look to be of the sort H.G. Wells might cook up after a bad nightmare. The plot draws you in, with an intriguing mystery of just what do these rampaging creatures want, why are they here, and where did they come from. The film wisely withholds some of that, and releases just enough information to the characters and you at a very well constructed pace to keeps things interesting. It isn't even too clear if these things are machines or organic life forms until deep into the movie.

A weakness might be that the characters are written as western clichés, but they are developed in an adequate fashion. The acting is actually superior, and most of the cast rises above any limitations the script gives their roles. CGI effects are done well enough to make these hostile invaders threatening. The dialog supports the action, and doesn't fall into the cornball quips trap that so many films do. The ending is perhaps too abrupt, with no epilogue given at all.

Overall, not a bad watch.