Straatcoaches vs Aliens

Straatcoaches vs Aliens is an offbeat sci-fi comedy that thrives on its strange premise and Dutch sense of humor. When mysterious creatures descend on a quiet urban neighborhood, it's not the military or the police who respond, it's the local street coaches.

The film walks a fine line between satire and chaos. The absurdity is intentional and often genuinely funny. Some scenes drag, and the visual effects show their limits, but the scrappy charm holds it all together.

What really sells it is the cast, who play it straight in the face of absolute nonsense. There's a sincerity behind the silliness that makes the film more than just a parody. It's not perfect, but it knows exactly what it is and leans into it with heart and humor.

The idea and concept behind the movie, as well as the general messaging behind the movie are solid, better than most Dutch films I would even argue.

However, where the movie fails is in its execution. The movie jumps around incoherently, characters are over the top to the extent that they become a parody in itself. The comedy is unfortunately very lame, cheap and uninspired. The acting is mediocre, not terrible, just mediocre at best.

What really sticks out here is that the idea behind the movie is good. It's a well thought out concept and ideas, the script may not even be bad (except for the jokes perhaps). But this is a typical case of learning to walk before you can run. The filmmaker is too ambitious trying to make a sci-fy comedy with satirical elements, big effects and staging, but hasn't mastered the basics of filmmaking yet, like blocking, pacing, editing, character development, etc.

In essence this movie is very much a remake of Aliens on the Block, which was a better movie. This movie tries to copy that movie, inserting a message of the negative effects of gentrification, but unfortunately the filmmaker hasn't mastered the basics of filmmaking well enough yet to make it a coherent, well paced, compelling, action driven movie. Character introductions are missing, establishing shots are missing, blocking is static, dialogue is cringe worthy (if you're well versed enough in Dutch slang to understand it).

I really hoped this movie would've been good, and was very enthusiastic to watch it. Finally a Dutch movie willing to go Hollywood with a good concept behind it (a comment on gentrification), the start was okay, but this movie quickly started to stumble in the second act. A terrible shame, which I hope the filmmaker learns from. I certainly do hope this failure didn't stop more Dutch filmmakers from trying these type of high concept movies.