Weekend viewings

Saturday was SciFi original night.

Alien Hunter (2003) - This movie is a mix of well known science fiction elements from other movies. It even borrows some stock footage from other movies (namely Contact and John Carpenter's The Thing). The good news is that the only thing terribly stupid about this movie is the title.

James Spader does another turn at playing a discredited scientist. He is sent to an Antarctic research facility to decode the transmissions from an alien 'black box' discovered and dug up there. Things don't really go wrong until the thing thaws out and the idiots saw it open at just the moment Spader decodes the message (Danger! Do Not Open!).

Even though this is quite a mish-mash of what have become genre cliches, they do manage to mostly pull it off. There is a government conspiracy, an Antartic research base with a corn field (yes, an indoor cornfield) which happens to have heat lamps allowing the female scientists to romp around in their scanties, an alien device in a block of ice which is quickly melting, another alien that looks like a retread from ID4, and a space craft that looks strangely Abyss like.

It's not a bad way to spend a couple of hours, not great, but entertaining. Look for homages throughout the movie, plus look for Keir Dullea and Carl Lewis (the olympic track star).

H. G. Wells War of the Worlds (2005) - An astronomer named George Herbert is all set to travel to Washington D.C. with his wife and son to celebrate their 10th anniversary when some shooting stars cause George to get a call from work. His wife is p**sed but her and the son go ahead with George promising to follow them later.

On the way to D.C. later that night George's car and watch stop and another shooting star lands over the hill. He goes to see what happened and there is already a crowd around the crater. Well, a nasty bug like machine appears and starts zapping people, I think most of you can take the story from here.

The first 15 minutes of this movie caused my wife to declare "This is a really bad movie." Well that part was, but it picked up after that.

The bad parts of this movie are anytime the walkers or the aliens appear. The walkers look like animatics and they are bug like, not tripods. The aliens are seen from a distance mostly, when you do see one up close it's hard to tell what the hell you're looking at.The director has the good sense not to linger on scenes that include either.

The action mostly stays in the country side where we see lots of destruction including at one point a house with a 18 wheeler cab sticking through the top of it.

The really good part of the movie is C. Thomas Howell displaying some amazing acting chops as George. The guy is obsessed with getting to D.C. and finds some strange traveling companions along the way.

Andy Lauer as an Army Sgt who has lost his platoon is the first to hook up with George to travel to another town where George's brother (an ex Army Ranger)lives. They also encounter a wacked out Army Lt. played by Jake Busey (talk about over the top). They encounter him again near the end.

George also hooks up with a preacher from Australia played by Rhett Giles. They get caught in a house when one of the alien ships lands on it. I liked the back and forth between the characters in this sequence. Giles character is struggling with his faith and thinking this must be the rapture and George the scientist trys to act as though he is listening intently, but you can tell he just wants to get back on the road.

Considering the $1 million budget I think they did a fair job with the real stand out being Howell. The job he turns in here makes you wonder why he doesn't get some better gigs. I had a problem with a few changes they made to the story, but for such a cheapie this thing does manage to be worth watching.