Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

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

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Stephen Abell It was Ray Bradbury's name that brought this movie to my attention. Just before Christmas and before I started reviewing I had watched, and enjoyed, the original. So there wasn't much choice but to view the sequel... even though it's not. This is actually a brought-up-to-date remake.However, even though it has Bradbury's name it wasn't as good as I hoped it would be. That is probably due to him not having his screenplay filmed. He actually had four screenplays for the movie and none of them was chosen, not for the original and not for this remake (Harry Essex scripted the original while Ken and Jim Wheat have written this one.) I've not read the Bradbury versions, though being a fan I can honestly believe they might be better than what we received here. Since he was still alive when this was filmed I would have asked him to update the script for the modern age. Had there been issues with the original, his gained experience from 1953 to '96 should have been able to smooth them out.That said, Ken and Jim Wheat don't do a bad job of bringing this film up to date. However, they're not too good at characterisation or flow. Though some of this could be down to the director Roger Duchowny. What this needed was an injection of excitement and relatable characters. Most of the people in the town are bleak and depressing; though this is believable, the way they are handled makes them more two-dimensional than possessing deep personalities and was a major cause of my boredom. Even the likes of Elizabeth Pena, Dean Norris, and Mickey Jones who are good actors and had a few decent scene's still couldn't inject life into the dullness.The other cause of my dissatisfaction is the slowness of the pace. This could have been used to create atmosphere and draw the viewer in. Sadly this wasn't the case and only added to the films dullness.The special effects are okay for the period and there are some nice ideas though due to the slow pace and the way they were shown their impact is dulled and not fully utilised. This is one of those films I would recommend to only the die-hard sci-fi fans and lovers of the original film. However, if you want to watch a decent film I'd say watch the original as it's much better on every count, especially if you've never seen it. There's a reason it's a classic and this one is seldom heard of.

Leofwine_draca IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE II is ostensibly a sequel to a 1950s alien invasion flick although it has nothing to do with that film and cashes in on the name value alone. Instead it's your usual cheesy TV movie of the mid 1990s, chock full of cheesy acting and even cheesier effects. THE X-FILES would have been a hit on TV when this film came out and yet it completely fails to tap into that series' realism or sense of paranoid inevitability.Instead, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE II is nothing more than space junk. Various dull characters in a desert town begin to notice weird stuff going on, typically involving cheesy CGI effects of floating craft and the like. Some are taken over in a 'body snatchers' style plot line, but there's none of the tension that a story like that needs. Instead the film just sort of drags along aimlessly while the familiar faces of Dean Norris, Bill McKinney, and Elizabeth Pena come and go. It's all very safe and all very uninteresting.

Woodyanders A spaceship crash lands in the remote desert. The alien occupants start taking over the minds and bodies of various residents of a sleepy small town. It's up to nice guy city boy photographer Jack Putnam (a solid and amiable portrayal by Brian Kerwin) to figure out what's going on. Director Roger Duchowny makes good use of the dusty'n'desolate desert setting, maintains a steady pace throughout, and does a sound job of creating an absorbing mysterious atmosphere. The capable acting from the fine cast rates as another definite asset: Kerwin makes for a likable protagonist, Elizabeth Pena excels as sweet and hard-working struggling single mother Ellen Fields, Jonathan Carrasco gives an appealing performance as Ellen's lonely and neglected son Stevie, plus there are sturdy contributions from Adrian Sparks as laid-back Vietnam war veteran Alan Paxson, Bill McKinney as the ornery Roy Minter, Dean Norris as the belligerent Dave Grant, Dawn Zeek as shameless tramp Linda Grant, and Mickey Jones as the excitable Chance Madson. The script by Jim and Ken Wheat warrants some praise for deviating a bit from the standard alien invasion formula; in a refreshing twist the extraterrestrials turn out to be benign beings who just want to get back to their home world. Kudos are also in order for Robert C. New's bright, slick cinematography, the nifty special effects, and Shirley Walker's alternately harmonic and ominous score. A neat little flick.

junk-monkey This is a pretty pointless remake. Starting with the opening title shots of the original was a real mistake as it reminds the viewer of what a great little period piece chiller that was. The new version that follows is an exercise in redundancy.Brian Kerwin plays a 'city boy' photographer who returns to a semi-abandoned desert town populated by a scattering of underdeveloped clichéd stock characters: the lollipop sucking Daby-Doll Lolita, the 'ornery old coot prospector, the crippled vet and his Asian wife, etc...Kerwin's character witnesses the crashing of 'something' into a hillside and shortly after strange things start to happen as pieces of weird blue rock are scattered around. The temperature starts to rise, all the water in the area vanishes, people start to act weirdly, things explode. Kerwin's character gets in and out of his car more often than is humanly possible in one movie. The film develops no sense of place, no character development, no humour, no tension. Everything that made the Jack Arnold's original a creepy little Cold-war paranoia classic has been abandoned. It just runs through its minimal hoops and then just ends.The special effects aren't very special - the interior of the ship looks like bits of cling film wrapped round some ropes which were then dangled in front of the camera to frame some of the most uninspired and clumsy wire-work ever put onto the screen. The script is repetitive - everyone says everything at least twice, Kerwin gets to say "let's get out of here" at least three times during the movie, twice in one scene. Loads of things are left unexplained at the end - why do the aliens need all the heat and water for example? - not that anyone watching would care; if the film makers didn't care why should we?The acting is adequate - better than the script, which at times, has an under-rehearsed improvisational quality, deserves. Though often the actors look like they just want to get the thing over with as quickly as possible - a notable example of this is when Elizabeth Peña registers the briefest, token moment of "frustrated despair hands to face gesture" before following sulking son Stevie outside to watch him do "angry sulky teenager smashing something off a table" gesture. Continuity errors include the (GB) sticker on the back of Kerwin's jeep appearing and disappearing, a double action of the gas in the exploding car, a towns-person being in two places simultaneously - once in the Alien Stevie's POV shot then immediately afterwards in a reaction shot, Elizabeth Peña appearing to shut a car door twice... you can tell I was gripped can't you? The movie commits that greatest of errors. It's boring.