Alien: Reign of Man

Four super-soldiers, the Eternals, land on a weird planet and are there to fight alien creatures and then somehow activate a machine that will restore the Earth to its old glory. Apparently, the planet is a mess and these four are our last hope.

I love how far we've come with computer generated graphics. Long ago, a great looking sci-fi film meant a huge budget for effects...and there was really no way around this. However, with the quality of computers and software increasing, it's amazing the sort of sci-fi that is being produced on shoestring budgets. Moon is probably the very best of the recent low-budget sci-fi, but Europa Report and Hunter Prey (with a budget under a half million dollars) are also really good looking and entertaining films you really ought to see. Because of this, I was excited to see Alien Reign of Man and I know that it potentially could be a great film even without a big-name cast and fancy effects. Sadly, this did not turn out to be the case....and the problem, surprisingly, wasn't so much the CGI but the script. A fundamental problem with Alien Reign of Man is the constant use of exposition to tell the story...which is just sloppy and took me out of the experience. Instead of telling the viewer that the Earth is on its last legs and the Four Eternals are our last hope in a prologue, the film literally has various characters start explaining this to each other...after much of the action has taken place. Plus, people do not talk this way to each other...ever. Or, perhaps the film could have slowly explained all this but instead significant portions of the dialog are spent having characters explaining to each other what is going on and why! As a result, the film is, dare I say it, rather boring.

By the way, I am constantly on the lookout for good low-budget sci-fi and I would love to hear from you with your suggestions.

The worst thing about this movie is that the sound is so mismanaged and the actors speak so unclearly that you can't understand half the dialogue. Fortunately, after a while you won't care. The plot is pointless, the aliens aren't very threatening, things happen without explanation, and there are some continuity problems especially at the end that make you suspect that they ran out of money and cobbled something together from the scenes they had managed to get filmed. One of the characters reminds me of the actor who replaced Calculon on "All My Circuits". Most annoyingly, one of the characters wears a space suit with her bu** length hair flowing free. I've had bu** length hair, and you aren't going to do that. Some grade B movies that are projects cobbled together by filmmakers and actors who can't get work are gems, like Phil the Alien or the Sorcerers, but this ain't one.

Worst writing and direction I've seen in a film in quite a while. Some of the acting was dreadful too, but if the actors had been given a coherent script, with actual dialogue, and something to do besides stare off into space, apparently enraptured by the special effects, some of them might have risen to the occasion.

The FX were decent in places. That's the best thing I can say about the film.

Rather than engage in anything resembling actual conversation the actors were forced to spew plot points. And what little plot there was was disjoint and banal. There were exchanges like... A: "The Order has known of this for some time." B: "The order stole my childhood." A: "The atmospheric parameters are bad." B: "I'm not sure what to do." A: "We'll torture you unless you comply." Really. The "dialogue" just jumps around randomly, while the actors stand almost perfectly still. Astonishingly bad. Oh yeah, one of the actors actually said "You could have got us caught, captured, or killed!" Care to explain the difference between "caught" and "captured" for me? Sheesh. There was also one attempt at poetic speech that came out something like "Floating rock blood." (That's not an actual quote, but the actual line was at least as nonsensical.)

I almost always watch movies to the end, no matter how bad, but I only made it through about 1/3 of this and just had to turn it off. It made my brain hurt and was wasting too much of my life.

Where to start...horrible writing, acting, directing and costuming. I would call it a fan made film, but that would be an insult to fan made films. I rent a lot of movies and quite often choose low budget films because they can be pleasantly surprising, good writing, interesting story line and decent acting don't necessarily require a multi-million dollar budget. However, aside from the location, there is nothing at all good about this film.

I did not know about this movie's existence when I happened to find it while browsing through the sci-fi section of movies. And reading the synopsis for the movie, I can't really claim to be overly thrilled, but I still decided to give the movie a chance, in order to branch out and watch more sci-fi than I usually get around to do.

Well, I suppose that "Alien Reign of Man" was hardly the best of choices for doing so, as it was a very bland and uneventful movie, that trotted on in a very monotonous pace and offering very little in terms of entertainment and storyline.

The CGI used in the movie was a mixed result; some of it actually looked fair and good enough, while other effects were just downright abysmal to look at, and makes you wonder just how something that obviously fake makes it past the editing table.

As for the characters in the movie, well let's just say that they are one-dimensional and that they are effectively faceless and pointless drones delivering equally pointless dialogue. I assume that this was the fault of writer/director Justin Price, because the actors and actresses seemed to actually be doing fair enough jobs with the limitations imposed on them by the lack of a proper script and storyline. This was the first time that I have seen the actress Khu in a movie, and I must admit that she really carried this movie single-handedly with her performance, just a shame that the movie turned out as bad as it did.

I will say that they found some fairly good locations for shooting the movie, as there is a pseudo-otherworldly feel to the scenery. And spiced up with some CGI, it just works all the better in favor of the movie.

The costumes in the movie were actually quite alright, so thumbs up for the wardrobe and costume design. "Alien Reign of Man" was a very weak addition to the sci-fi genre, and it hardly made any impact at all as it came and went without stirring a ruckus. If you make it through the movie the first time around, it is highly doubtful that you will actually take the time or the effort to sit down and watch it a second time around.