Alien Fury: Countdown to Invasion

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')

Another junky, waste-of-time, sci-fi TV movie that should never have been put into production to begin with. ALIEN FURY: COUNTDOWN TO INVASION has a great title which makes it sound like an exciting movie, but in reality it's anything but. Like a lot of low budget extraterrestrial flicks, the major villains in this film are humans themselves, with an alien fleet putting in only a few brief appearances during the running time.

The plot is relatively complex for a film of this type and seems to have been written in answer to the usual X-FILES government conspiracy stuff. A group of officials are busy fooling the public into thinking an alien race is ready to attack the Earth, but then it's the boy who cried wolf time when an alien race really DOES show up and an attack is imminent. The usual wooden heroes have to save the day, and the cast incorporates the typically stiff Dale Midkiff (PET SEMATARY) alongside such familiar character actors as Stephen Tobolowsky. There are some very poor CGI effects here to match the poverty of the storyline.

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.

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.

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.