Bullet Points: Alien Warfare
If I were to ever make a low-budget film there is a 30% chance that it would be about some spec ops soldiers running amiss of some alien hunter being. Story be damned, my movie would be full of alien killing action and bloody eviscerations and decapitations. The soldiers would shoot, move, and communicate. They would look like they could truly kill some folks and my alien would be equally badass with a heavy dose of mystery. Someday, maybe. Who knows? Until then, though, you can always try out Alien Warfare.
Synopsis: A team of Navy SEALs investigates a secret outpost full of scientists that has recently gone silent.
- SEAL team stuff: The film starts by thrusting us into the action with the team led by real former SEAL David Meadows. His men are trying to rescue a politician and his family from a group of Middle Eastern terrorists. The mission doesn’t exactly go as planned and the team ends up divided. Well, maybe not evenly. Meadows’ character Chris is the leader but his brother Mike (Clayton Snyder) ends up quitting the team. As you might guess, it doesn’t last long.
- Black site gone dark: Chris is contacted by some Feds and he and his team (including his brother) are going to be sent to the Caucasus Mountains to check in on a “black site” where some crazy science stuff has been going down. Somehow, the site was only quiet for 12 hours but they’re already contacting a spec ops team and assigning them to a mission a couple days away. I know. It makes absolutely no sense.
- Lady Scientist: Isabella (Larissa Andrade) is the only survivor of the science post. An alien artifact of some kind was found and being studied by a bunch of smart people until all of a sudden it killed them all. Sucks to be them. Isabella was hidden somewhere she couldn’t be killed and its wonderful for us because we’re able to learn a little about what the hell is going on. Even the Feds wouldn’t tell the SEAL team what they were looking for so you just know it’s not going to be good. In this case, it’s really not good for them.
- The aliens: I hope you weren’t expecting cool looking aliens cause these guys are pretty bland. One of them is even a chick! The aliens have spacey laser guns but they never hit anything so who knows what it might do. I like to think that if someone had been shot they would have instantly grown a massive, thick mustache.
- Combat: The longer the film goes on the fewer pieces of gear the men wear. They first showed up with equipment fit for a killer mission but then start taking things off like they were at the House of Babes. I don’t think shedding valuable equipment is part of their SOP’s. Also, the alien team, which happens to be an elite force of some kind, really sucks at killing people. It’s a good thing they didn’t have to face off against a team of highly-trained killing machines…
- Someone tell me there’s a plan: Chris, Mike, the comedic relief medic, and their conspiracy theory-believing partner never really come up with any plan. Hell, they actually fail their mission in a big way. The Government suits sent them there to get a the mysterious alien object but you can’t watch this movie and be impressed by their success.
The Verdict: The movie had a couple of things going for it; the actors weren’t terrible, it looked decent, and I thought they moved and interacted with some level of knowledge of military maneuvers. The problems, however, far outweighed those positives. The film struggled to ever get out of first or second gear and there wasn’t a single scene where I wondered what might happen to the main characters. Speaking of the main characters, the two brothers were so dumb and petty that I didn’t even want them to make it out alive. The aliens were a big disappointment, too. I can get beyond the look of them but they just aren’t badass enough for me. I wanted to like this movie because I think it could have been better with the cast they had but the lack of any really exciting stuff dragged this one down for me.
