Movie Review: ALIEN OUTPOST

We’re going to be invaded by aliens at some point.  It’s a definite.  So many movies can’t be wrong.  Zombies will be a thing, too.  I promise you.  But how will we know how to prepare for these inevitabilities?  With so many variations in these prophetic films, we don’t know if they’ll be enemies or friends…well, except for the zombies.  I’m pretty sure the zombies will be bad, and stabbing the brain seems reasonable (I won’t be the first to do it, though).  Anyway, back to aliens invading; Alien Outpost is the first movie that I’m aware of that attempts to realistically approach a hostile invasion.  Finally!  We have a manual to prepare!  Is it any good though?

Filmed in a documentary style, Alien Outpost follows three troops sent to join an infantry corp at an outpost with the goal of hurting the alien defenses.  The film is interspersed with interviews/confessionals from the soldiers on this front line, commenting on their efforts and leading up to a major confrontation.  The film takes place 10 years after the invasion in 2021 where the outsiders have allied themselves with those in the middle east.  It’s an interesting concept, and there’s a lot of thought that went into the scenario and the back story.  Unfortunately all of the thought and effort for creating a realistic scenario and style are squandered by generic military characters and activities.  What feels like  it should be interesting ends up being standard and boring retread material.

Visually the film is nicer and smoother than most “found footage” efforts, mostly due to those filming being seasoned cameramen.  First time feature director Jabbar Raisani has most recently worked as a visual effects supervisor on HBO’s Game of Thrones, so the blending of practical scenery and digital creations is seamless for the most part.  The aliens themselves, hulking brutes they call Heavies, look like they were pulled out of a video game…but it’s low budget, so what do you expect?  I know I’ve talked many times about working within your means – if you don’t have a big budget, don’t tackle a big budget script – but Alien Outpost knows the limitations and spares most of the budget for the action packed climax.  It works because most of the film is so quiet and uneventful.  The pacing was my biggest qualm.  Even at around 85 minutes the film seemed to drag along very, very slowly.  You aren’t given much reason to care about these men other than them being soldiers and you’d like to see them succeed.  The acting was…rough.  Any character I could have found myself caring about was difficult to feel with because I just couldn’t get lost into the film.

Alien Outpost gave me a déjà-vu of Starship Troopers 2, the DTV sequel Sony came up with in 2004.  I don’t think that’s a negative knock on the movie, there’s something oddly enjoyable about Starship Troopers 2; with all of these massive battles we saw in Paul Verhoven’s original, it’s a strange (but smart) choice to scale everything back and stay trapped in a building with smaller critters.  Alien Outpost is admittedly bigger in this respect, but the idea is the same – take a big concept, and focus on a smaller part of the big picture.  It’s a slow film with a good story, and with better casting and fresher writing and plotting, it could have been something memorable.  As is it’s a missed opportunity that it looks like Monsters: Dark Continent is going to tackle much more confidently this year.