Saturday, July 25, 2020

Alien Warfare (2019)


Fast car chases and loud explosions are a common sight in modern movies.  You know it’s Hollywood and they’re going to make it loud and fast, but you go anyway.  Sometimes, you want to mix it up.  You go for something independent.  It’s not flashy or anything.  Sometimes it turns out to be decent.  (Not usually, but sometimes.)  At the very least, you come to realize why these things are done.  It’s cliché, but at least they keep your attention.

Alien Warfare is a pretty basic movie.  There’s nothing too extravagant about it.  A team of Navy SEALs is sent to a foreign research facility to retrieve an item.  They’re not told what it is.  They’ll know it when they see it, though.  All they know is that everyone in the building was killed at once.  So, off they go to the remote site, basically not knowing anything about the mission except that they have to find and retrieve something.

When they get there, they find Isabella.  She’s a scientist who was involved with the project.  She survived by being in a Faraday cage.  She’s able to grant the team access to the room where the item is stored.  The only distinguishing feature, aside from being black and angular, is that it projects some weird alien language.

That’s when the aliens show up.  I should warn you now that the name Alien Warfare is misleading.  We only get to see one alien for a few seconds at the end of the movie.  The other four aliens are in suits the entire time, and can also become invisible.  There’s also no real warfare.  Sure, the SEAL team shoots at them a few times, but I wouldn’t call it warfare.

Eventually, the SEALs figure out what the object is.  This allows them to figure out what the aliens want.  The SEALs allow the aliens to take the object away, allowing everyone to go home in peace.

The movie seems almost like a class project.  It’s not even TV pilot material.  It’s like someone was given access to two buildings and had to write the script around that.  We never really find out much about the aliens.  For instance, it seems like the scientists had access to the pot for a long time.  The only explanation as to why the aliens took so long to retrieve it is that there was electrical interference.  But, they do eventually figure out where their missing thing is.

The alien design is so minimal that it was easier to hide them inside suits.  They’re shaped a lot like we are, which the humans think is natural.  I mean, why would intelligent life develop any other way?  Right?  I mean, it’s not like other planets would have other conditions and whatnot.  I get that human actors are playing the aliens, but it’s not like we didn’t have CGI last year.  It’s more that the production had to work within its limits and it shows.

There’s very little in the way of character development, for that matter.  The old leader was replaced by his brother.  All we know is that the team botched a mission and it was the old leader’s fault.  The rest of the team keeps looking to the old leader for guidance.  The only other thing we know about any member of the team is that Jonesy is obsessed with smoothies.  He even wants to take a blender back with him.

It’s like that old joke where a guy eats a meal in a restaurant.  The waiter asks how the meal was, to which he replies that he only has two complaints:  Not only was the food horrible, but there wasn’t enough of it.


 

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