Showdown at Area 51

This was quite disappointing. I had higher hopes for this movie, although i'm not sure why. The movie started decently enough but soon became worse + worse until it was just hard to watch for how bad it was. The movie doesn't even take place in Area 51. The story (or lack there of) is incoherent and the acting is hardly any better. A few of the actors deliver alright but the dialogue + story just isn't there. Very little about the "plot" really makes sense in the film + it seems the writers were making it up as they go. The directing/camera work on the film is also quite shotty. O well, this is what i get for trusting the Sci-Fi channel.

It is hard to imagine that my attention would be directed away from Christa Campbell, but Farscape star Gigi Edgley managed to do just that. Campbell (Death by Engagement, Revamped) was very evident in the first part of the film, but Edgley took over and saved us from the evil aliens. Well, Jason London (Dazed and Confused) helped her a bit.

It was the aliens that really stole the show. The good alien (unnamed on IMDb) was trying to stop the evil alien, with massive tricks up his sleeve, from destroying Earth to harvest our spent nuclear fuel. We would have gladly given it to them! The alien battles were very reminiscent of the Terminator.

References to Area 51 and the crash at Roswell in 1947 made this more interesting for conspiracy fans.

When an alien crash-lands in Area 51, a former soldier and his girlfriend try to help the being recover a device stolen from a rival alien species that will annihilate Earth before it can launch the initial codes for it to happen.

There wasn't a whole lot here that really wowed me over, as it ends up feeling more like a sci-fi film than a true horror with the aliens almost humanoid and not beasts, the focus on the recovery rather than the graphic kills, and an important error within as the ones we did get weren't very violent anyway, and the large sections of time devoted to the unraveling of the mystery surrounding the device instead of the aliens going after people, so as a horror film this one here is sorely lacking and really not worthwhile. Some of the action scenes are pretty nice and get some decent moments in, including the arrival and wiping out of a security troop on the base in a fun shoot-out, but this is totally undone by the rather insipid idea that comes in at the very end where the loyalties might be questioned by both sides, yet nothing is done with it and it's incredibly disappointing and confusing. Not a whole lot here to like at all.

Rated Unrated/R: Adult Language and Violence.

Do you have one of those friends who takes sadistic pleasure in bringing utterly crappy z-grade sci-fi movies back from the video store? Now you know how I was forced to have this travesty irreparably burned into the synapses of my brain.

Anyhow, you may have noted that I gave this utter dreck three out of ten. Was it the utterly unnecessary presence of TV's Matt Houston? Nope. The "I'm in it for the paycheck" performance of Gigi Edgley? Guess again! That's right, it was the totally unexpected presence of a mint '67 Rambler Rebel SST convertible right in the middle of the picture! "My God!" I shouted, frightening the dog and making Dave jump in his chair, "I have found a redeeming feature in this movie!" I actually watched the thing all the way to the end based on this fact, and I still could not tell you what the hell happened.

So... the most heavily guarded unacknowledged military black ops is guarded by a bunch of..... park rangers (WHAT?!) in convertible Baywatch Jeeps, with M-16A rifles that were replaced 15 years before this was made, which have magical infinity round magazines that you can just spray on full auto forever without ever reloading. Even more atrocious is the alien costumes. Could you possibly be any more lazy in designing SPACE ALIEN costumes? A vacuum hose and a paintball mask taped together. How impressive!.... NOT.

Excuse me while I go and watch a classic Predator or AVP movie to restore my faith in Humanity and remind me that at least not all of our species is jaw dropping FOOLISH.