Força Invasora

THE SENDER is a cheesy and unintentionally funny late '90s sci-fi thriller, clearly made to tap into the success of THE X-FILES around that time. Hell, it even has Steven Williams ('Mr. X' from the show) present, complete with ridiculously dyed white hair.

Sadly this is a goofy messy of a movie, only worth watching to laugh at. Michael Madsen continues a trend of appearing in cheap B-movie action flicks and gives what can only be termed a wooden performance. There are some surprising faces in support, including Robert Vaughn and R. Lee Ermey, but it's no surprise that the characters they're playing are so stereotyped.

THE SENDER adopts an action template throughout, with lots of senseless shoot-outs and some ridiculous vehicle chases to enjoy. Also, you can play 'spot Madsen's stuntman' throughout. Worst of all is the female alien, who turns up wearing a silver lame dress and glitter wig. At this point, you just know you're not going to be able to take this film seriously anymore.

The Sender is godawful Z-Grade SciFi with cloying, grating intentions, a script with War Of The World's type ambitions that was given an allowance of like ten bucks to come into fruition, and the result is a windows 98 screensaver with a fraction of a pulse. It's a shame because they scored two dope actors in Michael Madsen and R. Lee Ermey, but as good as they are they're both sheepishly notorious for appearing in bottom feeding diarrhea like this to put food on the table. Madsen strains his tear ducts as the sympathetic father whose adorable daughter has mysterious connections to extraterrestrial activity from years before. He's on the run from all kinds of government folks including Ermey's gonzo, overzealous military asshole, a one dimensional fire and brimstone go-getter who hunts them six ways to Sunday. That's about all you'll get, besides cameos from Dyan Cannon and golden oldie Robert Vaughn, as well as some Fisher Price worthy UFO effects and an all round lack of pride in the craft from everyone involved. Poo.

This was an intriguing movie from PM Entertainment. I personally like Michael Madsen. He has that comical way of looking at someone sideways like the doggies in commercials when a human does something stupid. I also really like R.Lee Emory. This guy is your resident slickster/quasi-military hardass/part-time mercenary (just like the part he played in "On Deadly Ground). He's always hard-core and looks crazy.

Plot was derivative (as other viewers pointed out), but the chases and scenes inside the alien spacecraft were not bad at all. Especially for a flick of this type. The actress portraying the alien was very pretty. Seen her before but don't remember where. Stephen Williams was over the top, with his white hair and eyebrows.

Another viewer commented that no one seemed freaked out over the alien presence. A valid point that dilutes the story a bit. Especialy Madsen. And that's what makes him a Grade A "Straight To cable" guy! Just too cool!

I can't remember why I started watching this movie, but some where during it I lost the will to live! It may have been during the appalling car chase sequences, you have to watch it to see just how bad they are. Can someone tell Hollywood that a Porche 911 will be way faster than a GMC truck on a country road, on any road. It may have been the terrible special effects, even for a low budget movie they were poor, leftovers from the 1970's possibly. The dialogue was trite, the story line infantile, face it there's good sci-fi and not so good sci-fi but this is bargain basement sci-fi. The support cast, Steven Williams was totally unconvincing, R. Lee Ermey was hamming it up with abandon, Dyan Cannon was on auto pilot, of the support Robert Vaughn was the best but then he was pretty much playing Robert Vaughn. Of the leads Shelli Lether looked to be an eye candy distraction and little else and Michael Madsen most of the time looked embarrassed, as he delivered his dialogue with a look of a man who's agent had signed him up for this. All in all, I saw it for free on a satellite movie channel and felt cheated.

Michael Madsen, and R Lee Ermey, are totally wasted in this explosion fest, masquerading as a sci-fi film. It's almost like the marketing department said we have some car chase scenes and explosions, can you wrap a paper thin script around it? After a promising opening with the Corsairs encountering a U.F.O over the Bermuda Triangle, everything falls apart, and for the next hour and twenty tortuous minutes nothing happens except car chases, explosions, and shootings, car chases, explosions, and shootings. Then everything is supposedly tied up by the sci-fi ending, but by that time, you might be running to your dentist for a tooth extraction, something that would be less painful than watching "The Sender" - MERK