SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

effgeevee I watched the MST3K version, but if I saw the full version on DVD or video for £7 or less, i'd definitely buy it. That price isn't a reflection on the quality of the movie either, I just don't like buying movies much.Alien from L.A. is watchable in two ways. I thought the design of the production was, for the most part, excellent. I liked the cramped, fuzzy-smoky-steamy atmosphere and lighting, and I liked the costumes. I'm a sucker for "futuristic" dystopias, and one set of villains looked like Fat Sam's gang from Bugsy Malone grown up and glammed up. I like Bugsy, I like glam. I also like Flash Gordon and Dune, and the governmental bad guys(though some of them weren't..) would've fitted right into either. The world design of "Atlantis" made me happy.The second reason I couldn't look away from this movie was that I just couldn't *believe* Wanda (the main character). She starts the movie as such an unbelievable drip and the way she reacts to the letter that tells her her father is dead.. a mildly interested "O my gaahd~". NO KATHY IRELAND, THAT IS NOT HOW.Other people have mentioned her lack of sensible character development, but not the fact that when her glasses get smashed, she looks around for them from a distance, seems to SEE them, and shrug it off never needing them again. Maybe she's long sighted I guess, but that's never suggested by the movie.It is also not a good move to use an actress with a voice like that. Coupled with her bizarre reactionless acting it makes Wanda seem a complete space case and fairly impossible to sympathise with (as well as confusingly young before close-ups), and if you feel the need to hang a lampshade on a personal quirk three times in a film then you should just take the damn thing out somehow.Having said that though, if you took Wanda's weirdness and lack of expectable human qualities out of Alien From L.A, you'd have to replace it with something really amazing. The confusion that her character causes in the watcher is compelling. You might call it car- crash-watchable, but I think it's something rarer. There's almost no substance to the part at all, though she does things and goes places, changes clothes and follows a plot of a sort. It's like watching tightrope walkers; you think to yourself "can that really be happening?"-- but it is.Watching Alien From L.A. felt like watching a lot of other movies I've seen all at once. It reminded me of Tank Girl and The City of Lost Children and Garuda and The Worst Witch (the one with Tim Curry), Total Recall, 1984, there are these cool, kinda noir-y bits..This movie basically confuses me on a base level. The main character, performance and story are not good; perhaps just the average for some romantic/empowering made-for-TV. But they somehow found their way into another movie. A movie we never see the characters or plot of, a movie which takes place in an 80s-future city state that's averaged out from various previously existing sci-fi but which nevertheless carries it, adds a little of its own zing, and ends up workin' for me. Maybe that movie is about Gus's girl, or why the city is run by a revolving man, or why anybody listens to that guy on all the TVs, or why everybody is so interested in bones.I just really want someone to make that other movie. I really, really do. But until then, I am satisfied with Alien From L.A.

Space_Mafune A California valley girl named Wanda Saknussemm (Kathy Ireland), desperately searching for a means to make a new start and escape her nerdish tendencies, goes to Africa in search of her absentee archaeologist father following reports he may have fallen into a bottomless pit only for her to stumble and fall down the same hole. She winds up in a bizarre and strange underground city named Atlantis which just might be at the center of the Earth. There she befriends a miner she calls "Gus" and continues searching for her long lost Papa. However those dwelling in the underground city have heard rumors of there being aliens from the surface world hidden amongst them and despite the government's constant denial that aliens exist on television, they still offer rewards for the capture of anyone who might be thought an "alien" making Wanda a target for many unscrupulous types.This is a relatively harmless fantasy time-waster. In fact, the non-discriminating fantasy viewer may actually enjoy this one. This is kind of like a California Valley Girl version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND with a bit of THE WIZARD OF OZ thrown in filtered through a BLADE RUNNER-esquire setting with the train of events playing out rather like SPACEHUNTER but this movie isn't anywhere near as good as any of those. I have to admit I actually had fun watching this though it's just so outrageous and outlandish in its approach. The sets too prove surprisingly effective for a low budget movie. Plus I always get a kick out of the state controlled television announcements which prove incredibly transparent in their intent. While this is definitely not for everyone (it stars Kathy Ireland who's really no actress, borrows most of its plot from other movies and things always feel a little too safe and sure for our leads), there are those who might find enjoyment here although it's a little tough to explain why exactly. Just the harmless fun of it all I guess.

Seth Nelson And the title says it all: a cheesy sounding title that is a cheesy sounding joke of a film known as "Alien from L.A." Why not just call it "Alien from South Africa," as this is the place where this movie was filmed? My advice for watching movies that have been featured on "Mystery Science Theater 3000:" do not watch the original version of the movie at all! Period! Always watch the movie with the theater shadow at the bottom of the screen, with a man trapped in space with his two funny, wise-cracking robot friends sitting at the lower right hand corner of the screen. It just seems better that way.Movie as it was originally seen: Awful! Movie as it was seen on MST3K: Genius!

MorbidMorgan The fanciful tale of a young girl's descent into the underground world of Atlantis, ' Alien From L.A. ', Albert Pyun's homage to Jules Verne's ' Journey To The Center Of The Earth ', is a engaging piece of sci-fi whimsy that makes the most of it's minimal budget. Kathy Ireland as squeaky voiced teen Wanda makes a delightfully offbeat heroine, plummeted towards the centre of the earth whilst searching for her explorer-adventurer father in Africa, missing and presumed dead. The underground world of Atlantis that she stumbles upon is realized as a rather intriguing punk domain with many unusual quirks - non-welcoming to visitors of the surface world. Nowhere near as bad as it has been suggested, ' Alien From L.A. ' remains a fun adventure romp for non-too serious fans of the genre. Interestingly the characters and visuals of the movie were re-hashed to complete the latter half of Rusty Lemorande's own ' Journey To The Center Of The Earth ', released in the same year. Although ' Journey... ' actually pre-dates ' Alien... ' ( production having begun around 1986 ), it was apparently beseiged by financial problems and Pyun was later called in to make the movie his own. This has given people the false impression that ' Journey... ' is a sequel to ' Alien... ' when it is not.