Astronauts, including Ivan Hood (Bruce Campbell) and Kelly (Renee O’Connor), return from a forty-year mission and find alien insectoids have taken over.Ā Humans are used as slave labor and it is up Ivan to lead a revolt.
Written, directed, produced, and acted by ex-Xena people, Alien Apocalypse has the feel of those New Zealand TV shows.Ā Like Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and Jack of All Trades, it tries to be a mix of adventure and comedy with emotional moments, all using low budget effects.Ā But the ādeepā scenes fall flat and the adventure is action-low and has too many ridiculous moments, such as the deadly accuracy of the archers who havenāt used bows before, and the inability of the aliens to aim their own weapons.Ā The humorous portions are where the film pulls together, but there arenāt nearly enough of those.
I couldnāt tell if some things were supposed to be jokes or just demonstrated incompetence, but I didnāt laugh, so thatās a bad sign either way.Ā An example is the blatantly fake beards of the traitorous humans.
In several cases, the wrong decision was made for the light tone. Now it is hard to say why rape is a harsher crime than murder or torture, but in modern entertainment, thatās just the way it is.Ā I wonāt claim that an extremely talented writer couldnāt, theoretically, write a rape scene into a comedy-adventure, but Josh Becker and Robert Tapert donāt have that kind of skill, instead making the film uncomfortable when it should be fun.Ā Like an ill-conceived, overly-serious killing early in the story, Becker and Tapert were using the rape to raise the stakes.Ā I think a few hours studying the difference between deep drama and upbeat entertainment would do them a world of good.
Bruce Campbell is his normal, amiable self, but isnāt given enough wild, campy things to do. I kept expecting him to break loose and go nuts, but he never did.
For a low budget, low concept, Sci-Fi Campbell vehicle, there isnāt much seriously wrong with Alien Apocalypse, nor is there much right with it, and that is what sinks it.