Today’s quick review: Alien: Battlefield Earth. After an alien scout ship crashes in Area 51, the alien leader (David London) reluctantly declares war on humanity to rescue his captured brethren. As hostilities escalate, the President (Ryan Michaels) ignores the pleas of General Romney (Scott Scurlock) of the Air Force, Danny Collins (Derek Nelson) of Area 51, and Neil Taylor (Cameron Bass) of NASA to make peace with the aliens.
Alien: Battlefield Earth is an experimental budget sci-fi movie that follows the tragic incident that leads to war between a benevolent alien race and the people of Earth. The movie is notable for its highly restricted budget and the creative techniques it uses to compensate for it. Although Alien: Battlefield Earth pushes the boundaries of the medium to tell its story, its efforts are largely wasted on a bland and unsatisfying vision.
Alien: Battlefield Earth makes for a baffling watch. The movie is cobbled together out of stock footage for the battles, video conferences for the humans, and CGI sequences for the aliens on their ships. The stock footage leads to battles that are short, vague, and visually inconsistent; the video conferences are let down by poor acting and ill-defined characters; and the CGI sequences just barely manage to convey what they need to.
Viewed a certain way, these visual shortcuts are an innovative attempt to overcome the usual limitations of budget productions. However, nothing can make up for the movie’s narrative shortcomings. Alien: Battlefield Earth features a linear, poorly paced, and utterly generic plot. It dithers over the question of whether the aliens and humans can find peace, padding out this one conflict with irrelevant incidents and endless repetition.
The end result is a movie with no insight and nothing to look forward to. With a better story, Alien: Battlefield Earth could have been a clever exploration of what can be achieved with a minimal budget. Instead, Alien: Battlefield Earth ends up with the debilitating combination of a bland vision and a lack of resources to realize it. Only give it a shot if you are morbidly curious.
For another sci-fi movie that goes to creative lengths to stretch a thin budget, try Space Detective. For a budget sci-fi movie with a similar format but more polish, try The Beyond. For a budget alien invasion with more live action, try Fighting the Sky, Alien Uprising, Horizon, or Attack of the Unknown. For a big-budget alien invasion movie, try Independence Day or Edge of Tomorrow.
[2.5 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14257552/). I give it the same for rock-bottom production quality let down by a flat story.