Alien Lockdown

Let's be honest. Alien Lockdown, also known as Creature, is a crude, low-budget rip-off of several blockbuster sci-fi classics, most notably Aliens, Predator, and Resident Evil. The only reason it isn't at the very bottom of the pile is because it relies on a proven formula. But make no mistake: this is not a good movie, and it falls far short of the iconic films it tries to imitate.

The story follows a special operations team sent to a secret military lab for a cleanup mission. Their job is to cover up evidence of an experiment gone horribly wrong-an experiment involving a mad scientist, gene manipulation, ancient alien DNA, and who knows what else. The result is a creature that looks like the xenomorph from Aliens, has the head of a Predator, and was created in a lab for military purposes, much like the experiments by the Umbrella Corporation in Resident Evil. Now, the creature has escaped, is on a killing spree, and only the special ops team stands between it and the rest of the world.

The influence of the 1986 movie Aliens is especially obvious. The weapons, the looks of the multi-level facility, the creature and its offsprings, some of the characters, the core story, the music, the sound effects, and even parts of the dialogue are straight out of Aliens. But while Aliens had relatively few logical gaps, Alien Lockdown is full of them. Many events make no sense or happen for no apparent reason, pulling you out of the story. I often found myself confused and needing time to figure out what was going on or what had just happened.

If you love alien creature movies, Alien Lockdown might be worth watching-but only if it's free. While I've definitely seen worse films, I wouldn't recommend spending a penny on this one.

Rented this one last night after having only seen the cover of the DVD. I thought, what the hell, might even like it. First off, the lead has some sort of Lucy Liu meets Ellen Ripley vibe going on...weird! And the supporting cast, well lets say they've got as much talent as an extra on a bad Star Trek episode (the one who gets killed right away). Except for John Savage and James Marschall,who have obviously have sunk to an all time low. But hey, what about the effects? Things look like a TV show so don't expect anything flashy. If they show this movie on late night TV, I might even consider it as above average. And that's because of the atmosphere which is actually pretty good, but turn off the sounds because the music just made me wanna kill myself...Note to soundguy: A sci-fi movie is not a Simpsons episode! So if your a sci-fi/light horror fan and you want to see something totally unoriginal, check this one out! I've rented it together with Starship Troopers 2...hope that it's better than this one, or maybe I should stop renting crap...hmmmm?

One of the crappiest movies I have seen recently, Jesus.

Creature aka Alien Lockdown.

Well don't say I didn't warn you when one day encounter this movie and decide you gonna rent, buy and see it!!! Just do yourself a favour and don't do it. The movie is utterly boring has a total lack on originality and suffers a poor storyline bad acting, and utterly uninteresting sceneries. They even put a Lucy Liu kinda woman in this movie, and she is trying to be like her so much that the more she tries the more she fails. The monster is a crossing between Alien and predator. Totally lack on everything in this movie. Nothing I did enjoy and just started to hit the skip forward button to save myself on the last 30 min of watching this piece of garbage that turns seeing movies like this into torture. Avoid like the plague. A big 0 outa 10 for me !!!

It became very apparent in this film that the government does control this facet of our media. I didn't quite see it at first, but as the film progressed I could see the embarrassing tactics of the government trying to be implanted onto the minds of our youth and sci-fi aficionados. I walked away from Alien Lockdown (possibly should have been running) with a stronger knowledge of how I should be a soldier. Here are the rules (from watching this film): 1) Never question why you are going into a darkened complex that has dead bodies that do not look like bullet wounds killed them. You know that it is not going to be an alien. 2) if someone says that you are not going to fight an alien on this trip … 9 times out of 10 you will be fighting an alien 3) shoot, then ask questions later 4) the prime objective is to kill, not question and finally 5) when all else fails, nuke 'em. Yep, following those simple five steps I could easily be a soldier too, but sadly I am not. I just thought we rushed too deeply into this battle. The creature probably was having some mothering issues with the doctor and hastily took it out on the overly aggressive soldiers. I ended this film feeling more sympathetic towards this creature than I did our own nation … is that bad?

Outside of the mindless soldiers who somehow followed every order without question and chose to never give us their names or emotional back-stories, this film was horrendous. There was some budget on this cinematic disaster that I was not expecting when I first placed it in my DVD player. I will be honest, I was taken aback when I first saw the budget. Riding low from the lack of budget in Alien 51, I thought this would follow the same fair. I was wrong. There was someone in this feature that knew how to use a computer, and while it may have been a Commodore 64, it was still appreciating to see. Sadly, that grew weak once we entered the locked complex. From not caring about any of the characters to jumping between moments of interest and filler, Alien Lockdown fizzled shortly after it took off. It started with an interesting premise that I thought they were going to expand upon, but that would have been wishful thinking. I think claustrophobia settled in during this film because I just couldn't get excited about anything that director Tim Cox presented to me.

The creature was definitely recycled from the film Alien vs. Predator and the characters just didn't go outside of their safety boxes. I knew nothing, nor did I care, about the creature killing the soldiers, because half the time I didn't even know their name. They were expendable to the director when they should have been bigger elements that would have led to a stronger story. Speaking of the story, there wasn't even one there. I am currently reading Make Your Own Damn Movie! by Lloyd Kaufman and in it he talks about not having a completed script while making your film because it allows you to put more into it later while making any adjustments. I do believe that director Tim Cox has read this book as well. Sadly, this was not a Troma production (which may have done a bit better), but instead a serious picture that had me shuttering throughout the night. With not having a completed script, I felt as if scenes randomly ended and left nothing up for further discussion. This only allowed the creature to continue to eat humans like they were going out of style. Again, I think what Tim Cox missed with this film was that he placed too much emphasis on the creature, and not enough on the human element surrounding the creature. I think if he would have taken a bit more time for the emotional element, he could have had a stronger story, better characters, and a more gripping picture. He did not, and thus Alien Lockdown just goes nowhere fast leaving us with a burning sensation in our eyes.

Overall, this film was a mess. The lack of story, characters, and development hurt more than it helped. This left plenty of time for director Tim Cox to spend on the creature, which it showed. While the creature was plagiarized from the Alien and Predator films, by the time that you get into this film you just don't care enough to argue. Mostly, what disappointed me about this film was the apparent disrespect to nature that Tim Cox showed. Not only with his decision to have the soldiers shoot the creature instead of question it first, but also with his ending that hurt more than just the creature, but all of humanity as well. This was a very pro-war, anti-question film that will subliminally hurt us in the long run. Films like these should be banned from our cinematic existence in hopes of creating stronger films that explore the depths of our minds. I do not suggest this film unless you are looking to remedy the pain of a root canal … then Alien Lockdown may be your relaxant.

Grade: * out of *****

I've seen worse. Which is not exactly a compliment for this movie considering some of the utter garbage I have encountered in the last few months on the Sci Fi Channel and elsewhere. Nonetheless, while this movie was bad, it falls more under the rubric of the traditional bad Grade B movie which just rips off its entire plot, creature, setting and everything else from superior movies, but still manages to be mildly entertaining. Indeed if this movie had been the first of its kind, there would even have been a few laudable things to comment on -- the unrelentingly dark and creepy remote laboratory, a suitably vicious creature which kills in gory fashion (and looks like they spent a little money creating) etc. But as it is, its just one cliché after another. Its been done better many times before. But then again, its been done worse. If you want to see how bad a movie with "Alien" in its title can be, check out something called "Alien 51". Comparatively this is a work of art, and while I am glad I did not rent it, I am not entirely upset at having turned on the TV to catch it. For fans of the genre, not good, but not pluck your eyes out terrible either.