Hyper Sapien - Les visiteurs de l'espace

Now, I can happily say that I did NOT rent this movie. This horrible film was on a Sci-Fi channel late one night, and I laughed so hard for so long watching it!

The acting is bad. The special effects are real bad. The hair is the worst. The girls' hair changes colour every scene ("due to the Earth's sun"), it's bigger than Dolly Parton's hair on a bad hair day after she's been in the wind for 36 hours; and their father/spaceguy leader who's looking for them could very well be the newest "before" picture in a Grecian 5 commercial.

This movie is sick - there's no other way to put it. Rent it simply for a good laugh.

A group of humanoid aliens travel to Earth after intercepting broadcast transmissions from radio and television establishing a base on the moon to observe humans. On one journey by the aliens to the surface, two alien children Robyn (Sydney Penny) and Tavy (Rosie Marcel) and a Trilat (three eyed creature with three appendages) stowaway on board and wind up on land near Aladdin, Wyoming in the hopes of proving to their people they can live among the humans. They encounter Robert "Dirt" McAlpin (Ricky Paull Goldin) while he checks for gaps in the fencing along his family's land and after learning they're aliens helps them by taking them to his Grandpa (Keenan Wynn) to ensure their safety as their Uncle Aric (Dennis Holahan) looks for them before their discovered.

Hyper Sapien: People From Another Star is a 1986 Science Fiction family film that like many similar films of the time was an attempt to capitalize on the success and popularity of E. T.. The film was initially announced as a project for director Michael Wadleigh who also wrote the script, but following his departure (with conflicting reports saying he was either asked to leave or he quick after frustration with the animatronics), Peter R. Hunt took over with Wadleigh replacing his writing and story credit with "Christopher Blue". The distribution was initially acquired by Tri-Star Pictures with the intention of giving it a July 1996 release, but Tri-Star later decided to release it in December of that year and gave it a limited theatrical run with most of its exposure seemingly having been through cable when it aired on outlets such as The Disney Channel. If I had to guess, Tri-Star also released the similarly E. T. inspired Short Circuit that year and they probably decided that would be the better bet in comparison to Hyper Sapien and you certainly couldn't fault them for thinking that because of all the E. T. knock-offs and clones of the 80s....this sure is one of them I guess.

While I say this is an E. T. clone, that's really only part of it because with the two humanoid aliens who come with the Trilat, it's also a little bit like Escape to Witch Mountain (only with no sense of urgency). For the first 70 minutes of the movie there's no real conflict and our characters mostly amble around the Canadian landscapes doubling for Wyoming engaging basically spinning their wheels until the movie rushes through a conflict in the last 20 minutes because rather than creating character or investment it's more focused on filling just enough time to go to "feature length". The aliens aren't particularly interesting or special with their gimmick of understanding humanity through TV broadcast something that was done much better in Explorers and while the Trilat Kirbi is somewhat unique in design with his three eyes and three limbs, he's not really all that interesting and does little aside from his appearance at distinguishing himself from other E. T. clones. The one element that I can say is genuinely good is Arthur B. Rubinstein's score for the film which has that sweeping feeling of whimsy many Spielberg inspired films strive for and to the film's credit the score does bring some life to that flat, conventional TV movie like approach of the film.

Hyper Sapien is a movie that feels like it was designed in the same manner as an architecture project or a utility system, it has a purpose that it needs to do and if it does it: it's a success. It's the kind of movie that challenges you to remember anything about it because it's such a banal and soulless product you can't even have much emotional response to it. At least with their worst E. T. knock-offs like the "so bad it's good" stupidity of Mac and Me or the grating annoyance of Nukie leave impressions on you, Hyper Sapien doesn't.

Three aliens–two girls who look like they've been dragged through a bush backwards and a three-eyed, three-limbed, petrol-drinking fur-ball with dubious looking facial folds and orifices—try to prove to their people that mankind is ready for extraterrestrial contact by stowing aboard a craft to Earth and taking off for the wilds of Wyoming, where they are befriended by rancher's son 'Dirt'.

Although this fairly unremarkable family friendly sci-fi adventure is predictable, saccharine sweet and extremely cheesy, its story about wide-eyed innocents exploring Earth about as twee as one could imagine, the whole thing is simply far too good-natured for me to really dislike it. The special effects are fairly impressive (with kudos going to the creators and puppeteers of three-eyed beastie Kirbi), the direction from Peter R. Hunt is more than adequate, and its potentially nauseating wholesome characters are surprisingly appealing, ageing star Keenan Wynn giving a particularly winning performance as Dirt's wise old grandfather (the actor's final performance).

N.B. Actress Rosie Marcel, who plays Hyper Sapien's gap-toothed alien moppet Tavy, currently stars as feline-faced surgeon Jacqueline "Jac" Naylor in popular BBC medical drama Holby City. She now sports much sleeker hair.

5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

My title says it all. This is one of those movies that just drags on and does nothing. If it weren't for the terribly slow pacing, it might actually be a decent movie with a message. The title alone makes you think it's going to be some kind of action movie with super monkeys or something. The term 'hyper sapien' is never once brought up and there is no explanation why it should be the title of a movie.

One of the biggest issues this movie has is the overwhelming Ex Machina present throughout the entire movie. Even scenes that are supposed to be suspenseful just come off as drab and uninteresting because all anyone has to do is "read minds" or "fire a few lasers". There's no suspense at all. The aliens can read minds, see through other creature's eyes, shoot lasers, and a plethora of other things that that were used because the writers were obviously unable to come up with alternatives or reasons for "why" something was the way it was. It's as if they sat around the development meeting and said "how do they learn to ride a bike? They read your mind! How do they understand human feelings? They read your mind!" It really takes away the mystery and awe of a movie when someone can literally do anything just by reading minds, it doesn't help you connect with a character because they have nothing to solve. It would be like getting a math test with all the answers and all you have to do is fill in the blanks. For being creatures that are (literally) lightyears ahead of humans, being able to read minds would be a sure-fire way to figure out how to interact with humans so we don't just kill them all.

There is also a sever lack of explanations for anything that happens. They never actually explain WHY they have come to Earth, though one could assume reasons why, but they don't actually say. Another small thing is why does Kirby drink gasoline and eat red hot coal? Do they even have coal where they're from? Do they have gas in their ship's engines? I get he's an alien, but it's things like this that bug me when it's never explained "why". Why does Robin and Tavi's hair change color when in and out of the sun, but all the other aliens always have white hair? Were they just special? I understand a movie needs a balance when it comes to exposition and a good movie can be ruined because they will explain things that actually don't need to be, but there is literally none to be had here. You'll find that a lot through the entire movie, just random plot points and things happening that never get a reason why.

That's not to say this is a terrible movie, it's just boring. The three-legged alien, Kirby, is actually kind of fun to see. He has three legs/arms, three eyes, and like five mouths. He also shoots lasers from his eyes. It seemed like the creature department and the puppeteers were given full reign on this characters because it just seems really well done, at least by this movie's standards. There's only a few points where you can tell it's a puppet, but I think that's true for anything that is on screen like this. Most of the acting is "meh", it's not the worst I've ever seen, but it just felt like no one really cared. Cinematography is done well, there aren't any boom mics in the shots and everything seems framed nicely.

Overall, if you're bored and want to stay bored, this movie is just for you!

The film is not all that bad but it's really geared for the kids to much for me to really enjoy and not like and not as good as E.T. but it is somewhat enjoyable. If you have kids and like Sci-Fi (or your kids do) then this is an entertaining family film.

The film movie had it's moments of being okay (from adult perspective) and I'm sure if I watched this one as a kid I would have liked it. Actually I'm surprised I've never seen this one before but then again I was 14 in 1986 and this film is geared for a younger than 10 years old audience I believe.

I would recommend this movie for a family styled Sci-Fi movie night/day. I'm sure the kids would enjoy it with that 3-eyed, 3-legged monster thingy running around who's about as annoying as Jar-Jar Binks.

4/10