Review of Alien Species (1998) by Robin W — 10 Jan 2010

It's quite amusing when a character flat-out acknowledges that they're in a crappy movie, and the hero of "Alien Species" pretty much says it all when he states: "I feel like I'm in a bad episode of 'The X-Files'".

This hilarious straight-to-video cheapie attempts to rip off every piece of sci-fi that was popular at the time it came out - namely "Independence Day" and "The X-Files" - even though it doesn't have near the budget to pull it off.

As a result, it delivers some of the most godawful special effects ever seen in a film made during the modern era, as the alien ships literally look like graphics from an N64 game; when the ships launch an attack on a city, the effects consist of crappy explosions being super-imposed over shots of buildings, which show no signs of any damage once the explosions disappear! Awful acting (despite getting top billing, the usually reliable Charles Napier is only in the film for about ten minutes) and idiotic plotting add to the fun, with an ending that involves the hero destroying an alien ship with a bazooka that he "found on the side of the road and picked up in case of an emergency".