Alien 51 (2004)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The acting in this movie is really good.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Why can't I give this movie 0 out of 10?Oooops I just called it a "movie". I did not mean to do that.The script is bad. The filming is bad. The casting is bad. The acting is bad, although I can see how some actors lost their professionalism and just went through it almost eyes closed for the money. Even simple little things like the audio overdub while Sam and Blondie drive out to meet the whiskey maker is something they can't do right. Both actors sound like they're reading it for the first time, both loathe it and neither of them are going to repeat it so the director is stuck with one pass in an acoustic environment that does fit a moving car.I do not think any one got paid a whole lot for this movie, and it is reasonably clear to me that you do not start out wanting to make a movie like this. But it will become such a movie if youDo not hire proper screenwriters. So many things wrong with the plot.Do not get actors who can act well enough. Those who can't can get killed right away. None of the characters act convincingly.Do not cast properly. Blondie is how old and she is the one who grew the monster in a lab? When? In high school?Get the music so cheap you cannot fit any of it to any scene. Nothing really fits well, but most of it sounds OK, so you're getting distracted all the time.Get a crew who have never worked a camera before. I don't know who they are, but this lot might have owed the directors a favor. The best way to complement the favor would be to not turn up. Maybe their salary is getting their name on the end creds.The only redeeming quality of the film is that you can turn the audio of and fast forward to watch the peroxide blonde who mysteriously cannot get a tan in that outfit. Whiel drooling over her you suddenly realize she is played by nice looking actress, who is portraying a girl who walks in the same clothes two days in a row - no one needs a girl like that.Would have been OK if they'd just gone ahead and made a porn movie. That's right. They got everything so cheasy you'd expect it to be the set of a porn movie. If you cannot afford to write a good script, get the right people and who can act, get a crew that can make a movie, then they should have made a porn movie, it would undoubtedly have been first takes all along, which it looks to be already, and make more people able to get through it: In 3 sittings over 1 month I managed to get about 59-60 minutes into it (no longer calling it a 'movie'). And I am not going to watch the rest. Ever. I was thinking of picking this one up as I saw a US copy on DVD used just before Christmas and the store owner did not know the movie. I now know enough about the movie to say it is a good ting I let my Peer-To-Peer program get this online and I can watch it for free, this is another DVD I will buy to find it is total crap. So spending money for this, perhaps in the presence of friends and/or family was not a concern. And will not be. Ever.I will be deleting this one and write it on my list of films to get from that place I found it, as NOT TO BUY THAT FILM. Also tell the store owner to price it lower. Like same price as a single empty DVD box. Hopefully someone can use the box.-Mikkel

One of those movies that misses out on having a flat 1.0 rating only because the few members of the cast and crew who were willing to admit to being involved came on here to vote, and not enough other people will ever see it to drown out those votes in a well-earned avalanche of 1's.It is difficult to express the degree of awfulness involved here -- there is not a single aspect of this movie that is anything but just terrible. Its amazing you make something like this and actually go ahead and release it. If I were responsible I wouldn't show it to my friends, let alone the world at large. It even failed to do the bad movie wraparound thing where a stupid film becomes entertainingly hilarious just to laugh at. No, just bad. And weird. And boring. And stupid. Somebody really needs to write the Department of Homeland Security and get the directors deported before they ever do something like this again.

I am writing this in response to the previous reviewer, because he said it was the worst movie ever.Some of us (perhaps those who watched more than 15 minutes) would disagree.I found myself watching this because I thought I was watching Alien vs. Predator. At first I didn't notice - that's probably what kept me going, because the initial scene was a little bit TOO bad. However, somewhere before the second scene and after the extreme badness of the first, I found myself laughing hysterically. Sure, the acting and the special effects aren't first rate. What you need to ask yourself is - "would you want them to be?" If you answer "Yes," then go watch something else. But if you answer "No, not necessarily" or "No ****ing way!" then this is for you.This movie is, of course, best watched as a comedy, despite whatever other genres it might fit into. The dialogue is clever, and the "bad" acting is good enough that every line is delivered with the perfect amount of stupidity; the story is much the same, dumb enough to entertain but not in such a way as to drag on forever. The bad special effects are, needless to say, part of the humor.Sure, this isn't a "new" idea - people have been making films that specialize in being bad (yet good) films for years - Roger Corman started in the early fifties and made a career doing it, and he wasn't the first - and sure, its not a formula that always works (in fact, sort of by definition, when it fails, it fails BIG). But for Alien 51, the formula works.

this was probably one of the worst movies i've ever seen. i don't think anyone cared the least little bit about what was being shot, said, or committed to film except maybe the DoP and he seemed to be napping in places. i don't remember ever having seen a movie as unenlightened in the cinematic procedures as this. there is no obvious talent demonstrated at any time or at any point in the film. the acting was as if these people were lobotomized and then just set loose within a certain boundary with a general idea of what they were supposed to be doing. you could almost hear the director in the background (if only in your mind) saying, "just wing it!" this was not entertaining, not amusing, not enjoyable. it left me with the feeling that i was dumber for having watched it. why bother rating it. to rate it would be to insult real movies.