Morons from Outer Space (1985) User Reviews

It`s Not That Bad

[Theo Robertson · 5/10 · 11 April 2004]

I remember when MORONS FROM OUTER SPACE it was criticised as being just about the worst British film ever made ! What you mean it`s worse than REMEMBER ME THIS WAY where Gary Glitter plays a tough macho sex god ? I don`t think so .

I will say this movie is very patchy mainly down to the small budget and a dual plot , something that`s not seen either very often or very successfully in film script structure . The scenes featuring Bernard are funny especially the " Are you male or female ? " scene but the ones set in England are slightly tedious and do lack a focus .

Yeah it`s hard to imagine that the director of this made both GET CARTER and FLASH GORDON but surely any self respecting IMDB addict can sit back and enjoy this movie due to the referrances . Let`s see now THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT , a line of dialogue snatched from BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI , oh what`s that movie with Jack Nicolson in a lunatic asylum ? ....

Low budget spoofery

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 21 March 2022]

A typical and very British low budget sci-fi comedy from 1985; don't expect much in the way of FX or satire here, as this is more of a quirky character-led work. It marks one of the few cinematic forays for Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, and both are funny, although members of a much larger ensemble cast. The actors are fine here and the situations memorably offbeat, although perhaps not as laugh-out-loud funny as something like CLOCKWISE. I think my favourite moment is the CLOSE ENCOUNTERS spoof.

"Show Us Your Tentacles!!"

[richardchatten · 3/10 · 3 September 2022]

Scarcely in the same league as Verity Lambert's sixties work as the original producer of 'Dr Who', and certainly not the sort of film on which you'd expect to see the name of the director of 'Get Carter' and 'Croupier' (who had intended it merely to be the warm-up for a much more prestigious subsequent project). But his previous film HAD been the lurid remake of 'Flash Gordon', and as he himself observed the money's all up there on the screen.

Pretty bad, but not quite the car crash that usually ensues when TV stars are let loose on the big screen, and there's definitely a mild attempt at satire; such as the depiction of the bumbling authorities and the perils involved in sneezing in a spacesuit.

Underrated Classic!

[sdribble · 20 November 2002]

I first saw 'Morons From Outer Space' on cable television when I was 12 years old. (1986.) Recently I spotted it for sale on DVD, and what, with a price tag of only 10 dollars, thought I couldn't pass up owning this cinematic masterpiece.

So how does it look now that I am older and more sophisticated? (Or at least just older...)

Its 100 times funnier now. I actually GET the jokes I didn't when I was 12 because I have seen the other movies they reference (Cuckoo's Nest, etc.) I also have a better eye for subtly and timing. The other IMDB reviewer here was right-there is a lot more to this film than there appears to be at first viewing. Not to mention the nice part where the Aliens are brought 'down to earth,' metaphorically speaking.

If you have seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail 2000 times and are sick to death of it, well, go and watch it again. But after that, see Morons From Outer Space. Every scene in it is like a small sketch and will actually get funnier with repeated viewings, much like Python.

Favorite scenes: The 'therapy' at the psycho ward with the Iron Maiden record, and the sneeze inside the space helmet. Classic!

They came, they saw, they did a bit of shopping!

[ShadeGrenade · 2/10 · 13 July 2009]

In 1985, 'Jim'll Fix It' made one boy's dream come true by giving him the chance to review a movie Barry Norman-style. The movie he saw was the recently released 'Morons From Outer Space'. He loved it. When I went to see it at my local cinema, I found the place was packed with kids.

'Morons' was the big screen debut of Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, following their successes in both 'Not The Nine O'Clock News' and 'Alas Smith & Jones'. Lots of television comedians have made chumps of themselves making the transition to the big screen; the year before this came out, Kenny Everett starred in the vile 'Bloodbath At The House Of Death' and more recently, Horne and Corden's 'Lesbian Vampire Killers' failed to set the world on fire.

Here Smith and Jones were unable to blame the writers - they were the writers. Smith plays 'Bernard', one of four aliens from the planet Blob enjoying a holiday in a spaceship that resembles a caravan, when an accident sees them crash on the M1. Bernard, who was in space at the time, finds his way to Earth, and tries to track down his friends. Usually in sci-fi movies, aliens are depicted as being super-intelligent, but here its the other way round. The Blob people are idiots, pure and simple. With the help of a manager named Graham Sweetley ( Jones ) they go on to become celebrities.

Aside from penning a script lacking in humour, the other major mistake Mel and Griff made was keeping their characters apart for much of the movie. Anyone who saw 'Alas' will tell you they worked best when bouncing their humour off each other.

'Aufpet''s Jimmy Nail raises a few chuckles as one of the aliens. When the military blows the door off the spaceship, Nail's road rage-style outrage is amusing.

Mike Hodges, the director, was responsible for the Michael Caine classic 'Get Carter', so what he was doing here is anyone's guess. He is completely out of his depth. It is equally surprising to find the great Verity Lambert credited as 'Executive Producer'.

There are a couple of bright spots - Bernard's encounter with a skeletal space-pilot and the 'Close Encounters' spoof where Andre Marianne's French scientist tries to communicate with the aliens by playing 'The Entertainer' on a Wurlitzer but overall the film has little to recommend it. It is basically a two-minute sketch stretched well beyond its limits. When Dinsdale Landen's character burst into song I nearly walked out. The kids I saw it with seemed to enjoy it though.

For their next picture 'Wilt' ( 1989 ), Mel and Griff sensibly hired Andrew Marshall and David Renwick to adapt a Tom Sharpe novel. It corrected every fault critics found in 'Morons'.

Viewed now one can draw parallels between the Blob people's celebrity status and that of reality show contestants. So yes Mel and Griff were ahead of their time in that respect.

I do not hate 'Morons' but considering the talent involved in its making, it should have been far better.

In Morons From Outer Space, no-one can hear you laugh.

[BA_Harrison · 2/10 · 4 April 2013]

In some ways, Morons From outer Space can be seen as being way ahead of its time, an uncannily prophetic attack on the celebrity culture that has become so prevalent today, where unexceptional members of the public are catapulted to superstar status by the media; this doesn't change the fact that the film is utter garbage, the film's primary gag—that not all alien life-forms are intelligent—stretched incredibly thin over an hour and a half.

Unlike their fellow Not The Nine O'Clock News comedian, rubber-faced Rowan Atkinson, tubby Mel Smith and dour Griff Rhys Jones completely fail to make their particular brand of humour work on the big screen, the result being a disaster of galactic proportions. The problems with the film are numerous—poor choice of director, lame spoofery of other movies, Jimmy Nail—but perhaps the biggest mistake of all is that Smith and Jones, who worked so well together on the telly, remain separated for most of the running time, their unique chemistry sorely lacking.

Unfunny Parody

[JoeB131 · 1/10 · 4 December 2007]

You know, I usually have respect for British comedy such as Monty Python or for British comedy/sci-fi, such as Doctor Who, Red Dwarf or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I list those because I want to establish a standard for good.

This movie didn't have a single laugh in it. Essentially, a spaceship full of slackers crash lands their space ship (which oddly enough, resembles a trailer-home on the inside) in the UK, and an international team of British and bad American stereotypes proceeds to examine them. Hill Street Blues' James B. Sikking plays a CIA officer who delights in torturing the aliens. The aliens escape with the help of a friendly reporter, who turns them into rock stars.

Meanwhile, their captain is stranded in space, and is dropped off in Arizona by a gender confused alien. He is confined to a mental institution (bad parody of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" ensue) before catching up with his rock-star comrades in NYC. A spaceship reminiscent of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" arrives and takes them home.

The American scenes are poorly done because it is fairly obvious that the producers have never been to America. (The sign on the diner that reads "Chile" being the most glaring example. "Chili" is food, "Chile" is a country.) The Americans are nothing but bad stereotypes, and in many cases, are more alien than the British accented aliens.

It's essentially a one-joke movie. The aliens are dumb. The Earth people are dumb. The problem is that they aren't funny.

Alas, Smith and Jones........sigh....

[FlashCallahan · 2/10 · 11 February 2017]

A spaceship stops at an intergalactic fuel station. While the captain's refuelling, one of his idiotic companions plays with the controls and accidentally starts the ship and crashes into the earth.

This causes a sensation, and the media celebrates the extraterrestrials, the military interrogates them for eternal wisdom.

However soon they recognise that the visitors are not the brightest sparks - although some generals believe it's just a mask.......

It's unbelievable that two of the finest comedians of the eighties could write such inane, tiresome, lazy rubbish like this? These are two of the creators of Not The Nine O' Clock news, and were regarded as masters of their art.

So the film follows three Aliens, with obvious cultural reference and winking at the general public, saying subliminally 'you'll buy anything the most popular thing on the planet tells you to buy, and I'll get rich from your stupidity'

Pretty much life imitating art back in March of 1985.

On the other side of the story, we have Mel Smith in his own One Flew Over The Cuckoos nest movie, with even a pseudo chief!!! Oh the hilarity.

It's just another worthless British Comedy where famous comedians/Celebrities thought they were so popular, people would flock to see their film.

See also The Boys In Blue, Alien Autopsy, Keith Lemon: The Film, and Guest House Paradiso.

All utterly appalling, but featuring endearing small screen stars who are bearable in small 30 minute segments.

It would have gotten a lower score, but to see Dr Legg from Eastenders shirtless, that's priceless.

Otherwise, horrible stuff..

embarrassing!

[mccarthystuart · 2/10 · 30 January 2006]

It's not often that you see a film that is pure, unmitigated crap. This is one of them. (Hell, even the 2/10 rating is generous)

The humour used is film is unspeakably infantile. Some of if, though, is very much of its time. There are some sly digs at the cult of celebrity and Britain in the 1980s.

The only thing in this film that did it for me was Mel Smith's slightly sympathetic role as the unfortunate alien, Bernard. While we're on the subject, I don't even know why Smith, and his co-star, Griff Rhys-Jones ever bothered making this piece of trash in the first place!!!

One major turn-off for me was the rather gaudy, tacky, cheaply-made look of the film. In fact, the whole thing looks rather false and plastic!!

Compared to "Morons From Outer Space", director Mike Hodges' previous effort of the decade, "Flash Gordon" look like a Bafta award-winning masterpiece.

If you've got nothing else better to do, I really would NOT recommend renting this film out!!

Better than its rating implies.

[Latheman-9 · 7/10 · 11 June 2003]

In director Mike Hodges's only openly comedic film to date, Anlgo-American pop culture of the '70s and early '80s is mercilessly lampooned. From "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) to David Bowie as the avatar of Ziggy Stardust, nothing escapes a satirical mauling by Hodges and writers/actors Griff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith. On the surface, much of the humor appears to be at the level of Benny Hill, but it is actually much more subtle in its subtext, addressing the mindlessness of celebrity worship, the nature of friendship, the willful self-delusion that can arise from one's own expectations, and the fleetingness of fame. With satire more subtle than seen in similar, American films of the same period (e.g., "This is Spinal Tap" (1984)), "Morons from Outer Space" may not be to everyone's taste. I will be the first to admit that British humor is an acquired taste for many of us non-Brits, but I found this film far funnier than many recent American comedies that have received rave reviews ("Meet the Parents" (2000), "Something about Mary" (1998), "Analyze This" (1999), etc.). Any viewer willing to expend the effort to actually concentrate on what is going on and being said in the film will be amply rewarded. The most difficult part of viewing this movie is finding it, a problem with many of Hodges's works. Rating: 7/10.

I Usually Love The British Humor But This Isn't Funny

[Rainey-Dawn · 2/10 · 14 November 2016]

This is simply and unfunny film to me. I didn't even get a slight giggle out of what I saw in the beginning... so I fast-forwarded, played & watched, fast-forwarded again and didn't find anything to capture my interest at all and never did I laugh nor did I give a slight giggle.

I like quite a few nonsensical, stupid comedies but this film just didn't do it for me. I also have enjoyed quite a number of British comedies from TV shows to movies but this film is just lame to me. Morons in Outer Space is an appropriate title for the film but they are unfunny morons.

The film isn't completely 100% trash that's why I'm giving it 2 stars out of 10 instead of rating it with a 1 star but it's not a good film to me.

2/10

I loved it!

[klaatu42 · 9/10 · 17 September 2005]

If you are expecting a film called Morons from Outer Space to somehow be incredibly deep and fulfilling, you're approaching it all wrong.

This film presents exactly what it sets out to present: a campy, hilarious comedy without pretense. Reminiscent of films like Crime Wave and even the Pink Panther films, it is well acted by a great cast.

Don't go into this film expecting the answers to life, the universe and everything (that's a different story). Watch this movie for fun and check your higher intellect at the door.

Smith and Jones, who have long had great on-screen chemistry in television, are strangely separated for the majority of this film... living in two separate sub-plots.

Watching the film, you would think they must have had a moderately high budget, but I have a feeling they just made good use of what they had.

Don't discount this movie based solely on the other reviews here. I personally have laughed out loud so much I've had to pause it. You have to pay close attention and listen to everything to get the funniest bits.

Amusing, but seriously flawed

[razorwyre1 · 6/10 · 7 February 2009]

Goodness knows here are many worse, and dumber, comedies out there, but its truly a shame that Smith and Jones didn't put this script through some more refinement, and hired a veteran comedy director (one who has a sense of timing), before blowing their chance at international fame. The main problem with the film is it tries to do to many things and use too many comedic styles at once. On one hand it tries to satirize our celebrity focused culture, while on another it tries to send up the conventions of science fiction films (and films in general)a la the Zuckers. At the same time that its trying to juggle those concepts, its also trying telling a story that could have been inherently funny on its own, without the distractions of the slapstick and the parodies. The idea that the first aliens to openly visit Earth are here by accident simply because they're too stupid to pilot, let alone understand the workings of, their rented spacecraft had great potential, but the movie is too distracted by everything else it tries to do for it to work. Despite its problems, there are some genuine laughs to be had here, and its well worth a watch.

Garbage

[socrfan1 · 2/10 · 11 May 2019]

Why does anyone think movies like this need to he made? If that's the best you can do get out of the motion picture business.

Very very silly, but a favourite.

[D Orton · 12 February 2000]

Morons from Outer Space is ridiculous. The humour, at first glance, is very low-brow. Look beneath the surface, and the movie is rife with satire and irony. The characters are absurd, but believable in the context of their world. The real triumph of the film are the subtlety of much of the gags. It takes familiar themes of human life and extrapolates them to their most ridiculous conclusion. It is extremely silly, but I never tire of watching it.

Close Encounters of the Crap Kind

[Stevieboy666 · 2/10 · 28 February 2022]

British science fiction "comedy" about some very human like aliens coming to Earth and becoming celebrities. Yawn! I just don't understand how British TV comedy was so funny in the 1980's but it really struggled when applied to the big screen. Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones were brilliant in the TV shows Not the Nine O'clock News and Alas Smith and Jones but here they are just embarrassing. Jimmy Nail was a household name playing Oz in the TV comedy series Auf Wiedersehen Pet, sadly he plays the same Geordie character here but again it's embarrassing. Terrible, moronic movie.

woefully rotten

[filmbuff1970 · 1/10 · 29 May 2002]

A comedy should make you laugh this fails miserably,i didnt laugh once.yet it has a great supporting cast,but the script wastes the talent involved.yet another British flop.a movie then about morons and only morons will enjoy this tedious turkey.1 out of 10

MORONS Challenge: See if You Can Watch 'til the End

[brando647 · 3/10 · 29 April 2016]

Ugh. MORONS FROM OUTER SPACE is a chore to finish. I've now seen it twice and both times I lost total interest and played games on my phone for about 15 minutes or so in the middle of the movie. It challenges you to watch it from start to finish and I failed each time. It's 90 near insufferable minutes of juvenile gags and thoroughly unlikeable characters. Many of the worst movies have a charm that I love but comedies don't often reach that level of "so-bad- it's good". They're so bad at being intentionally funny that it becomes almost painful to witness. Let's start with the "plot": four human aliens are wandering lost through the universe. For whatever reason, they get tired of the one named Bernard (Mel Smith, who I only recently realized was the Albino in THE PRINCESS BRIDE) and abandon him, leaving him locked outside of the main ship on the spaceball court while they bail in the smaller shuttle. Crashing immediately on Earth, the three aliens…Desmond (Jimmy Nail), Sandra (Joanne Pierce), and Julian (Paul Bown)…are taken by the British government and discovered to be absolute fools. A low-level TV news employee (Griff Rhys Jones) bumbles his way behind government lines and gains access to the aliens, helping them to make an escape. Once they're on the outside, he becomes their manager and tours the nation with them as some sort of garbage rock band or something. Meanwhile, Bernard is determined to reconnect with his fellow idiots.

The movie aspires to be a spoof of popular science fiction titles with nods to ALIEN, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. But spoofs are funny so I refuse to acknowledge this as one. My disgust stems from the fact that the movie tries so hard to be zany. I hate failed zaniness. We're talking gags like Bernard's conversation with a roadside trashcan he believes to be a dominant life form. Or his fumbling to scratch his nose through his space helmet before a sneeze covers his faceplate in a violent blast of snot. It always takes the easy route, opting for lamest of slapstick humor or the corniest dialogue. The writing, from co-writers Smith and Jones, is atrocious. The aliens come a planet known as Blob. Desmond proudly shows off a piece of alien technology: a pen. You get it everyone? They're morons! It's a joke! Seriously though, MORONS FROM OUTER SPACE feels like a movie for children, but kids aren't going to get the references. And what about scenes like the one where Bernard is rescued from his isolation by hitchhiking with an alien who looks like a mummified corpse (one of the few funny moments in the movie)? A mummified corpse who was hoping for "special payment" for the ride until he discovering Bernard is male and ejecting him into space. Dead creepers don't really have a place in a kids' movie. Who is this movie for and why are we supposed to care?

There isn't a single character I care about in this movie. I have no idea who the main character is supposed to be. It might be the three aliens who become a travelling rock band. But they're horrible people, so that can't be right. They're ignorant and selfish. And Sandra's singing, that the aliens' musical career seems contingent on, is ear-splitting. She's horrible but the movie acts as if she's a phenomenal talent and we're expected to go along with it. On the subject of the aliens' musical tour, did anyone else get a Katy Perry Super Bowl halftime show vibe? The aliens dress in colorful costumes and ride out onto the stage in an enormous toy spaceship. Just me? Anyway, no, I didn't care about them. Bernard? Maybe. He's portrayed as a victim. Ditched by his fellow aliens. Nearly sexually assaulted by a space zombie. Hit by a car, assumed to be a raving lunatic, and committed to an asylum. And all he wants is to be rich and famous like the others. I don't know. I can't really stand any of them, especially Desmond who can be best described as Cousin Eddie from NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION (if he were a British alien). Because the movie never wrangles my interest, it's quick and easy to forget. It's been less than 24 hours since I last watched it and it's already fading from my memory like I failed to get it's parents to make out at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.

Final nail in the coffin: if you make it all the way to the end of the movie, the credits play out over an 80's pop title song written in part by Mel Smith and performed by the Morons themselves. So…have fun with that.

British comedy at its worst

[Red-Barracuda · 2/10 · 9 June 2013]

I had always heard that this was a terrible film but I recently decided to watch it anyway. It seems that the reports I heard were pretty accurate. It made me wonder if Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones were as good as they seemed back in the 80's. They were key players in Not the Nine O'Clock News and the stars of Alas Smith & Jones so how in hell could they have been responsible for writing the screenplay for Morons from Outer Space? It seems inconceivable that at no point could they have not seen that this was an utterly unfunny script. To be fair to them, they are not alone – in Britain we have a tradition of successful TV comedy stars making pathetic movies. It seems Smith and Jones were simply living down to expectations.

The story is about four aliens who land on earth; the catch is that they are utterly stupid. That's more or less it. This could certainly be described as a high concept movie or a one-joke movie if you prefer. The problem is that the joke isn't really very good and there are no actual laughs that I can remember. The writing is very bad it has to be said. It is watchable, I will give it that; and I sure have seen worse but it really is sort of complete crap at the same time.

The concept was better than the result

[dave13-1 · 5/10 · 13 April 2012]

This movie is a mixed bag and more than a little disappointing. The well-known Brit TV comedy pair from Alas Smith and Jones (Mel Smith and Gryff Rhys-Jones) co-star here but sadly have almost no scenes together. The story concept is that aliens have landed on Earth who are just not very bright. Earthlings look to them for technological answers to our problems and/or the wisdom of higher beings, but, well, they're just not very bright, especially having mislaid their leader (Mel Smith) the one of them with half a clue. He spends half the movie trying to catch up with his group, although the script gives him very little interesting to do along the way. Meanwhile, the aliens have been revealed to the public and create a media sensation, leading greedy music management types to attempt to cash in on their fame, despite their having no talent, in addition to being just not very etc. etc. If it sounds like a one joke movie it is, and it works its one joke to death while generating few laughs. The result is rather slap-dash and unsatisfying - there are a few funny bits scattered here and there, but there seems to be the potential for a much better and funnier Brit Com in this concept than we ultimately get. I wanted to love this movie based upon the cast (musician Jimmy Nail also appears) and the title, but I didn't and I warn anybody considering watching it to lower expectations drastically.

Decent comedy....c-o-m-e-d-e....e

[dj3980 · 7/10 · 7 August 2016]

The story is terrible, the acting is poor, the premise is outrageous, and it's still worth watching. If you're not into slapstick or British sense of humor, of course you're not going to like it. Even though I wasn't in love with that particular genre, I still laugh at this every time.

It is called "Morons from Outer Space", I don't know why anyone would be surprised when that's what the movie ends up being about. The characters say and do stupid things, because that's who they are supposed to be. Sure, there are cheap laughs, but what is so terrible about that? I wouldn't exactly call it a family film, but for pg-13, you could do a lot worse. I don't recall very many swears apart from one "distinct" one. There is a short moment of full frontal with a dude, however.

It's worth giving a shot.

as civilization advances, individuals stay the same

[zimbo_the_donkey_boy · 5/10 · 21 February 2012]

Is this flick an incredibly sharp look into one of the great truisms of man? Visits to Wikipedia and IMDb provide useful reminders that, although smart people keep advancing the accomplishments of science and technology, most people are no smarter than most people were a thousand years ago. In a few years you will be able to contact & communicate with your friends simply by scratching your butt. You shall be able to travel to Topeka, Kansas, in two minutes with out even having to get out of bed. Mankind will have colonies throughout outer space. But they won't be just populated with today's astronauts. The bulk of earth's population--stupid people--will not all be left in LA & NYC. No, there shall continue to be stupid people everywhere that there are intelligent people, and that'll include extraterrestriality.

However making a straightforward point of that in a science fiction film was too simple for EMI to bother with. Oh no, they decided to go one better and really drive their point home by using only stupid people to write and direct their flick. I suspect they also were trying to drum up a little sympathy for Britains from us charitable Americans, "Wow, Britains have to settle for so-called 'comedies' like this which are not funny? OK, I won't complain about Congress sending them more financial aid." How can someone not like a movie which tries to poke fun at aliens by mocking crappy pop singers & Belgian drivers? Did you miss the first vomiting gag? Don't be glum. They puke throughout this flick. I did find this DVD interesting for the further little insights into British culture that I picked up from watching it. I figure that's worth an additional two stars. And, although only several lines were actually funny, I did laugh AT this film a lot; I was laughing at the failure of the lines & situations to be funny that were obviously MEANT to be but, yes, I was laughing, so I figure that's worth a couple stars (if you laugh at people falling down stairs, as I do). And for those of you who bought the DVD and need a reason to ever watch it again, it featured a view of a man's naked penis. Look to see if you can spot it. That's worth a fifth star in a PG-flick.

Good piece of British comedy.

[tcc-6 · 8/10 · 13 March 2005]

It's British, so it's not going to look or feel like the American style of sci-fi comedy. It compares well with Spaceballs or Galaxy Quest. The humour is subtle and ironic, it spends as much time sending up the tabloids and cold war paranoia as it does spoofing contemporary sci-fi. It also goes down the one road that sci-fi doesn't travel very often: What if we are well up the food chain compared to our neighbours? The answer it arrives at is "Then we are in trouble." Above all this is as gentle as ET, with a big heart and a good moral at the end of the story. If you like this movie, try the 2000AD strip 'Skizz' a much darker treatment, but again from the alien point of view.

T.

a moving cinematic gift from my elder brother

[dr_foreman · 6/10 · 19 September 2004]

It's tough to review this movie, isn't it? I thought I had done a write-up several months previously but, in retrospect, I remember now that I scrapped it due to lack of inspiration.

Well, let's be honest...it's hard to critique because it's kind of a stinker, and in an aggravating way, too. My brother picked up the DVD, and within days he hid it amongst my collection just so he wouldn't have to face the indignity of owning it himself. It's a shame, really, because some excellent talent went into this. Verity Lambert is a classy producer, and Mike "Get Carter" Hodges is a magnificent director when his heart's in a project. Unfortunately, he agreed to do this movie as part of some package deal, so his heart was clearly elsewhere.

I actually find the production values surprisingly good, by British standards; the spaceship zooming down the highway is an amusing and impressive image. And some of the acting is fine: Dinsdale Landen and James B. Sikking, two of my old sci-fi buddies, strike just the right OTT note. But the aliens themselves are played by a drippy bunch of third rate comedians with no charisma whatsoever. Their flatness sinks the whole project (the meandering story might also share the blame).

Alas, sci-fi comedy is a pretty lousy genre, and this film is no exception to the rule. I can see where "Morons from Outer Space" inspired later--and similarly flawed--efforts such as "Red Dwarf," but for some reason the formula doesn't work in any of its forms. Sci-fi is dorky enough without turning it into a screwball comedy; once those genres are crossed, there really is nothing recognizable for an audience to latch on to, is there?

Earth's first alien visitors are a bunch of uneducated space truckers.

[a_chinn · 5/10 · 7 October 2017]

There's a few chuckles in this sci-fi comedy about earth's first alien visitors being essentially a bunch of uneducated space truckers. Mel Smith co-wrote and stars in the film and somehow managed to snag respected British director Mike Hodges to helm the film. The picture was also shot by ace cinematographer Phil Meheux, who's done everything from multiple James Bond pictures to "The Smurfs" to "The Long Good Friday". However, the concept likely would have worked better as a short film or SNL skit than a feature length film and the plot drags on far too long. Worth a look, but nothing special.