Review of Alien Nation (1988) by Alex W — 05 Jul 2014

This is a film that's grown on me over the years. When it first came out I enjoyed it, but was not overly impressed. It's essentially a standard buddy cop action flick, but with an alien as the new unwanted partner.

James Caan plays the alien hating detective and Mandy Patinkin plays his new alien partner. The story is exactly the same an any other buddy cop film of the 80s you've seen, with probably every cliche in place.

The filmm uses the aliens as a metaphor for race, with the newcomers being given all the rights of humans, but at the same time are discriminated against, live in their own impoverished communities and are generally held in contempt by humans.

Rewatching the film and now that buddy cop films are less common, I'm more nostalgic and less critical of the cliches, which help to make me like it more, but more importantly, I think the richness and thought out elements of the alien newcomers was something I didn't appreciate as much the first time around.

Most of the time you have these sorts of genre mashups, there is only one alien and not an entire race with their own community. It's this well thought out backstory and mythology of the aliens that likely led to the subsequent TV series, comics, book and cult following.

There's a good supporting case that includes Terrence Stamp as a wealthy newcomer, Peter Jason as a newcomer-hating cop, and Brian Thompson as a big scary newcomer in one scene. Director Graham Baker does an adequate job directing the film's action, but the behind the came star is cinematographer Adam Greenberg, who makes the film look way more better than you'd expect.

A solid bit of sci-fi that is well worth watching.