Alien vs. Ninja (2010)

Absolutely the worst movie.

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

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

An alien lands in old Japan and takes on a group of ninjas. That's the plot but if you like ninjas, swordplay, bouncing aliens, gadgets, gore and pink babies this is the film for you. After the first great bit of fighting it slows down for a while then picks up the pace and moves fast until the end. The action is excellent and the film as a whole manages to be goofy and charming and exciting, sometimes in the same scene. It is low budget (it's mainly set in the same forest) but it is far more entertaining than a lot of mega-budget productions. The cast is good and plausible in the action scenes except for Donpei Tsuchihira as Nezumi the comic relief who is very irritating, though I only saw a dubbed version so he might be funnier in the original language. Though I doubt it. The alien design works well in the context of the film. It may be someone in a rubber suit but that's not necessarily a disadvantage. (That's indeed why some fans love the traditional Godzilla. None of this CGI nonsense.)The ninja team (well those that live) go off together at the end and I for one would like to see them in more adventures. Predator vs. Ninja anyone?

ALIEN VS NINJA is a low rent sci-fi flick from Japan which basically sees a director assembling a handful of actors, taking them out to the woods and filming a series of short, brutal and ballistic fight sequences while trying to string together something resembling a plot. It's kind of like the zombie film VERSUS, yet lacking that movie's finesse and vitality, probably because the budget is a great deal lower. Instead of a plot, we get cheesy humour, even cheesier computer graphics and the dodgiest looking alien since the days of the '50s-era B-movie.Sexy ninja Mika Hijii spends much of the running time battling the alien threat in a skin-tight PYC costume; the director ensues she's either doing the splits or flying through the air artfully at all times. The aliens are silly and kind of fun, and the hyper-kinetic action can be a hoot at times. There are touches of black comedy, like a crow plucking at a severed head's eyeball, thrown into the mix as well.Is this a good movie? Far from it: it's dumb, plot less, predictable and clearly made on the cheap. Is it an entertaining movie? To a degree, yes; not something I'd consider watching again (it lacks the genuine B-movie intricacy of a film like CYBORG COP) but it passes the time for undemanding genre fans.

You cannot take a movie with a title like that seriously. And as the reviewer, who saw it at the New York Asia Film Festival also stated in his review: You can have a lot of fun with the movie. Why stop and start thinking or applying rules on this movie, that it cannot abide (like a story, dialog that actually has some philosophical statement and so forth) and will only spoil the movie for you? Having said that, it might drag at places, but the pace stays intact almost throughout the movie. I can only recommend this to people who love their low budget movies to be completely insane. And that is what you can expect from this movie. Almost non-stop nonsense. But in a "good" way! I enjoyed this at the Frightfest in London, where it played at midnight ... A great movie to close a day!

I saw this at the world premiere at the New York Asian Film Festival and it was a great deal of fun. Its a film where the title tells the whole story and if you're good with that you'll have a great time.The plot of the film has a fireball fall to earth "several hundred years ago"(nudge nudge). In it are some aliens which go about tearing up the villages. Into the mix are a bunch of ninja who stumble upon the creatures and decide to take them on. Thats it.This is a very knowing, very bloody, very fun film that doesn't try to do anything other than entertain. Most of the effects are very good, though the monsters are very much men in suits, which is fine. I mean they aren't reinventing the wheel just trying to have a good time.High art its not. High fun it is.Crack open a cool one, get some popcorn and some friends and enjoy.