Alien Nation (DVD)

...planet. In fact when an alien spacecraft crashlands in the Mojave desert they are welcomed into the community with open arms, setting up base in California. Of course, 'open arms' means they are treated in much the same way as any other ethnic minority which gives the liberal minded directors a rich resource from which to make their rather obvious and belaboured observations.

The basic formula of the movie is pretty hackneyed and ...
...before...

Alien Nation however tries to be different by adding in the alien element and to some extents this at least raises some interest. James Caan is the detective whose partner is killed by an alien dealing a new drug in the alien's little ghetto area. He wants to track the makers down and bring them to justice to avenge his partner's death but there is no way the aliens will talk openly to a human - the investigation would be ... more

Awww how sweet. For once aliens have come to earth and are not trying zap, body snatch or in any other way wipe all traces of humanity from the face of the planet. In fact when an alien spacecraft crashlands in the Mojave desert they are welcomed into the community with open arms, setting up base in California. Of course, 'open arms' means they are treated in much the same way as any other ethnic minority which gives the liberal minded directors a rich resource from which to make their rather obvious and belaboured observations.

The basic formula of the movie is pretty hackneyed and dull. Forget the aliens in it and you have a cop whose partner has been killed whilst investigating a new drug on the street. He is teamed up with another guy who he doesn't like but who has inside information on the killers and they go on the hunt for them and grow to like each other. Heard it, seen it, read it a million times before...

Alien Nation however tries to be different by adding in the alien element and to some extents this at least raises some interest. James Caan is the detective whose partner is killed by an alien dealing a new drug in the alien's little ghetto area. He wants to track the makers down and bring them to justice to avenge his partner's death but there is no way the aliens will talk openly to a human - the investigation would be dead before it began. In then steps new partner Mandy Patinkin...an alien who is also a police officer - they'll talk to him see? Of course Caan doesn't like him immediately, he hates aliens you see but is forced to work alongside him. Patinkin is of course the liberal minded alien guy and Caan the bigoted white police officer who eventually comes to accept their differences and actually like Patinkin, meeting his wife and kids etc. Sounding cliched yet? Sound like every single white cop teamed up with black cop movie you have ever seen? Did to me. Same plot, same scenarios, same wooly liberal clap-trap and heavy handed attempts to promote a great message...falling flat and hard upon its face because of how ineptly handled it all is. I expected to see gangs of aliens hanging around a ghetto blaster wearing 'colours' at one stage...like how dumb are we that you need to consistently draw the comparisons? The rest of the movie is pretty much superfluous, they add some weak, low grade action scenes in so as to sell the movie to the public and then return back to trying to heal the black/white divide. Wish you could do it guys...but choose a better and more appropriate setting next time. The first half an hour or so will keep you interested as you are introduced to the alien culture, different physiology etc. - milk gets them drunk, both males and females carry the baby...that kind of thing...but then it all decends into tedium.

Someone decided to make this movie to score points, that is painfully obvious and it will annoy the hell out of you by the end of the movie. Shame, because otherwise it may have been ok, but in order to make their message cleared the producers toned down on the action and violence...thus making for a rather dull cop caper with a few aliens thrown in for something different. It did however spawn two more movies and a television series, so someone did well on the licence somewhere. Its not bad as such, its just incredibly dull and you could imagine that a movie with this premise could have been much better. If they wanted to tackle social issues then they could have done so here, alternately they could have made an action movie, but they shouldn't have fudged the two to hedge their bets. All very well trying to shoot down the bigots, but you have to be careful where you are aiming the shotgun. Sadly, I think they ended up shooting themselves in the foot here.

 

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