Alien Outpost (2015)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Alien Outpost (AKA Outpost 37) tells the story of the last human military outpost on Earth left to fight off what's left of a hostile invading extraterrestrial force. This was a really good piece IMHO. I thought that the sense of realism it gave off was excellent. I found it refreshing, to be honest. Full Disclosure Moment™: I'm a HUUUUUUGE fan of found footage/mockumentaries, so that gave this piece an extra boost in my eyes. LOLI thought the acting was great, especially the commander @ the base. He really gave an impression of being someone that commands great respect. The effects were about on par with what you might see in a SyFy Channel (WTF with that dumb ass name change! I HATE it LOL) original series. Nothing ILM quality, but totally passable. The effects simply get the job done.I like how the film paralleled today's conflict in the Middle East with an alien invasion. Themes of xenophobia are explored here in decent detail. For me, the draw was the overall feel of the thing. It felt like a real account of an actual incident that took place. Overall, I thought this film was smart, well acted and very real feeling. A bit more cerebral than the usual fare in this genre. A welcome departure from the cookie cutter nonsense we usually get with found footage films. Stick around after the end credits for a really nice post credits scene! Great setup for a possible sequel.

I don't what movie the latest reviews were watching or maybe they were trying up the review ratings but this movie was beyond terrible. It almost looked like some of the actors knew they were in a terrible movie and were trying to keep themselves from laughing during certain scenes.All the camera shaking and obvious military drama felt like every cliché in the book for this type of movie not to mention hardly anything Sci-Fi about it. If you're considering watching this movie, do yourself a favor and save yourself a couple hours and do something constructive like clean your house instead. You'll feel better about yourself afterwards.

I am so glad I watched this in spite of the low rating. I almost never watch anything below a 6 but there were so many good reviews that I took a chance. I think the reason for the low rating is that the bad reviewers did not even watch the whole movie, skipping through much of it. They missed many essential plot points, like the reason the locals were hostile. Or they judge a film primarily by how much of a Hollywood blockbuster it is, or demand state of the art special effects. I judge a film by character development, story, what is done with the budget they do have, acting, etc. And I like Indie films and sci-fi, and high end sci-fi at that. I don't think this was a "B movie" as many have called it; don't get that. The story is very plausible, scientifically, since we have sent out greetings to the universe as if every advanced civilization will be a better version than we are (granted, at this point, it would be a long shot if anyone found our greetings or spacecraft yet, but I think it will happen sometime in the far future). I love documentary style movies, which this is, and although I have never been in the military, from what I know, it seemed pretty accurate to me (as accurate as any movie is about anything). They did a good job on the sfx, dealing with the low budget well, and possibly causing the time period to be after the invasion, rather than during, which required less sfx. Many reviewers have criticized it for lack of more modern military hardware by 2033, but that is only 18 yrs hence, which is like comparing 1998 to 2015, so not like the distant future or anything. It would be very difficult to make great leaps in weapons while the whole world and its infrastructure/economy is being attacked, and any movement in that area would be specific to just a few vital efforts, as the movie shows. Plus I think lessons have been learned, like 2001 was not like the movie, by any stretch of the imagination (and esp the movie 2010), nor was 1984 anything like the book (thank goodness) and they were set at least twice as far in the future as this movie. You have to be careful when imagining the future. An opening for a sequel might have been there (or just part of the ending, which was good), and I hope there is one, we need more good sci-fi, IMO. This is obviously a talented director who did a very commendable job with few resources, and good casting using the huge pool of good non-stars out there. Very good cinematography also. It is a good watch if you care more about an overall good movie than essentially watching a video game with big budget sfx with big name not-so-great actors.

A challenge to review, given that this film is pretty authentic-looking, raises some interesting issues and is at least competently done, and on occasions even impressive. This is not the first time that we seem to need to be reminded in a film context that the armed forces of the United States (most especially at the level of the ordinary personnel) are effective, brave and mostly noble in their intentions. "The Last Ship" has been doing something quite similar for the US Navy, and a little bit by the way has a pretty interesting pandemic-plague-apocalypse story tacked on. In the case of "Mankind's Last Stand" (aka "Outpost 37"), we have an alien invasion story with a twist relatively unique, given that the invasion was some time previously, and success with its repulsion has been partly, even largely achieved! That just leaves pockets of resistance to be cleared up - a dirty, thankless and often dangerous task now pursued out of the gaze of a planet putting its life back together, and seeking to put a very unpleasant setback behind it ASAP. The full story here unfolds via a pseudo-documentary "talking heads" mechanism (involving service personnel) which convinces pretty well and apparently has various time frames that leave we viewers a little ensure as to how far along the story the film is going to take us. It is more than half way through that we finally learn that the "US" in USDF does not stand for "United States" (shades of the USS in "USS Enterprise" - and a reasonable enough plot device given the goal of the movie). Since both alien invasion and (mainly) United States forces are involved, it is clear that this is not entirely new territory for a film. You've got series after series of "Falling Skies", plus "Monsters", "Battle: Los Angeles", "Cloverfield" - even "Independence Day" and "War of the Worlds" to choose from. Hence those who like comparing alien invasion movies, or are even carrying out a study of them, will certainly add "Outpost 37" to their collection, and probably even be pretty satisfied. The bigger question is what everybody else should do! It's not especially that "Outpost 37" is obviously a worse film. It really isn't, even if it is a modest offering that relies on (sometimes quite thought-provoking) storytelling and realistic scene-setting rather more than a grand scale or special effects. It's just that it got to the cinemas rather later than the others mentioned above, and perhaps after our appetite for this particular kind of movie has been satisfied...