Alien Hunter (2003)
There's nothing here you won't have seen before.
Starring: James Spader, Janine Eser, John Lynch, Nikolai Biney, Leslie Stefanson, Aimee Graham, Stuart Charno, Carl Lewis, Svetla Vasileva, Anthony Crivello, Kaloian Vodenicharov, George Stanchev, Rufus Dorsey, Roy Dotrice, Woody Schultz
Director: Ron Krauss
Running Time: 92 minutes
US MPAA rating: N/AUK BBFC rating: 15
Science Fiction, Thriller
On DVD 'Alien Hunter' is the sort of conveyor belt-produced sci-fi movie that seemed to be springing up by the dozen back when 'The X-Files' was making it big. Nowadays, such material still feels as formulaic as it did back then - only now with the added disadvantage of not even being fashionable any more.
Aside from the bizarre appearance of one-time Olympian Carl Lewis, James Spader is the only well-known face who thought it wise taking part in this straight-to-video offering. He plays scholarly ladies' man Julian Rome, a communications expert called to a lab in Antarctica to investigate a chunk of ice. Nothing particularly abnormal about ice in the South Pole, I hear you say. In fact, from what I can gather, there's loads of the stuff down there. But this particular chunk has been sending out an indecipherable radio signal, and there's also the small matter of the alien found lurking inside when the docs cut it open.
It soon becomes apparent that 'Alien Hunter' is a grossly misleading title. There's precious little "hunting" going on, by either the humans or the distinctly mild-mannered alien. In fact, it soon becomes apparent that the principal threat comes not from the little green man, but from the flesh-eating virus it's accidentally brought with it (oops!).
It's not a bad film, and has a few nice touches added on by the special effects department. The acting's also of a higher standard than you'd generally expect from such B-movie fare, with the possible exception of John 'Sliding Doors' Lynch who grates as Spader's irritatingly sceptical love rival.
The worst thing about it is the complete lack of invention on the part of director Ron Krauss and writer J.S. Cardone. There's nothing here you won't have seen before, and you'd be better off watching any of the many other alien movies this one takes its lead from.
DVD Extras: Director's commentary, a 'Making Of', storyboard comparison, location shoots, deleted scenes (including an alternate ending) with optional commentary, photo gallery and some trailers.
It's Got: A cop-out ending.
It Needs: To dump the clichés and come up with some ideas of its own.
Alternatives: The Thing From Another World, Signs, Contact, Roswell, Dreamcatcher
Summary: Mildly entertaining in places, but utterly predictable and never remotely thought-provoking.
Review by Gary Panton
Review Date: 18th December 2003
External Links
Official Web Site
Alien Hunter at the IMDB
Comments3 Comments |
| :-: Absolute garbage A total waste of 92 minutes :-: :-: |
| Comment by:- John McCarthy | | 17 April 2004 | ip: logged |
| --spoiler alert-- Could have been a good movie. It's a shame. A lot of unnecessary subplots. The whole cryptology knowledge is useful to decipher the message "do not open" (from the pod), but it doesn't matter because it's opened already. The ladies's man attribute of the character does not play any useful part. Also an abandoned subplt is them not being able to contact a sattelite that picks up the radio signals from the pod they have next to them, so they go ahead and rig up an in-house satellite receiver. They don't show any of that process. Come on. Getting my cable hooked up is an awesome accomplishment. A satellite signal receiver should be also significant for characters in a movie. In essence, this movie seems like one of those bad John Grisham movies made from his books, except this is no John Grisham. One thing though, this movie was a lot better than "Sphere", which was similar. |
| Comment by:- Kokoliso | | 14 November 2004 | ip: logged |
| alien hunter is a boiling pot with bits of Alien,Close Encounters of the Third kind, the Thing , the Abyss, Cocoon and some dozen other films thrown in for good measure. Spader does his best and the acting is overall acceptable. I decided to watch the DVD , even when is was dead-tired. The fact that I did not fall asleep in the next 90 minutes is telling. If you compare it with the typical fifties B film it is all quite acceptable. The film appears to pick up momentum in the last 20 minutes, but it is all pretty much B-level compared with the formerly mentioned SF Classics. I would not rate it above Sphere though, that film had a topcast and some sweaty moments which Alien Hunter obviously lacks. |
| Comment by:- blom0344 | | 05 November 2005 | ip: logged |
